UNITED Si.vii -, wi i. J t.iilCA. 



^ 



REMARKS 

J? 

oir 

fsL AVERY. 1 



WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 



(First published in the Boston Atlas, in a series of Numbers.) 



" Constant experience shews us that every man invested with 

power is apt to abuse it ; he pushes on till he comes to something that limits 
him. Is it not strange, though true, to say, th,at virtue itself has need of lim- 
its ?" 

Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws. 



BOSTON: 

JOHiN H. EASTBURN, PRINTER, 

No. 18 State Street. 

1836. 



C4-5i, 



rv 
ci 



REMARKS 



Slavery in the United States has long been a subject 
of speculation. Eminent men who have ceased from the 
earth, expressed their regrets that such an evil existed, but no 
one among them suggested a remedy. Colonization was in- 
stituted by slave-owners, and received some support in non- 
slaveholding states. AVithin the last ten years, abolition 
societies have been formed, tohere slavery does not exist. 
Agitators have been retained, and paid, by these societies to 
go from town to town, and gather assemblies of some men, 
and many women and children, to listen to their inflammatory 
harangues on the miseries of the blacks, and " the horrible 
sin " of slavery. In some assemblies aliens have made a 
conspicuous figure. Some who speak the language of the 
country in such a manner as to show, in every accent, their 
foreign origin, have come here to teach us our duties ; and 
one, who appears to have been followed by a fame near akin 
to infamy. The Americans have to learn a lesson of no light 
importance to their future welfare ; and that is, the folly of 
receiving and putting into office, civil and political, aliens who 
may have found a residence in their native land full of peril, 
or who may have consulted personal safety in flying from it. — 
At this moment a displaced alien-president of one of our col- 
leges, is petitioning Congress to restore to him a fine, paid on 
conviction for a seditious libel. — The framers of our consti- 
tution are not to be blamed for not foreseeing the immeasura- 
ble evils which arise from naturalization of foreigners. Their 
descendants will suffer to the full extent of finding themselves 
a conquered people, if means are not devised to save the 
country from the dominion of these invaders. By the labors 
of these aliens, and some American citizens, thereto excited 
by the desire of notoriety, by the stimulus of poverty, or by 
delusion, which easily engrosses limitad minds, and by the 



encouragement of those excellent judges in great public ques- 
tions, of law and morals, the fair sex, a very great excitement 
has been goLten up in this community. 

An inmiense majority of all the people, of every class, 
united in the opinion, that these abolitionists were doing in- 
calculable mischiefs. Public ojDinlon soon arrived at this 
point, that these alien agitators should not disturb this commu- 
nity. The satisfaction was universal that one of them had 
discerned it to be prudent to recross the ocean, and exercise 
his benevolent functions at a distance. 

Meanwhile one of the most numerous and respectable 
meetings ever held in Boston, on any occasion, was held at 
Faneuil Hall. It was well understood, that the opinions there 
expressed, by men who have been compelled to consider the 
subject of slavery, under the serious responsibility of high 
public stations, were the opinions of a very large majority of 
all our citizens. The essence of these opinions is, that the 
citizens of non-slaveholding States cannot interfere with sla- 
very ; and that the discussion of it in these States, is pregnant 
with national evils, with peril to slave-holders and misery to 
slaves. Such is the opinion at this moment, of all men who 
are not under the influence of an unfortunate enthusiasm, or 
under influences which it is needless to characterize. 

In this state of things a volume was announced from the pen 
of the Rev. Dr. William E. Channing on slavery. Curiosity 
was wide awake. The perusal occasioned very different 
emotions among different men. How many opinions it has 
changed, I know not. An answer has been made to it by an 
anonymous writer, in a pamphlet, and remarks for and against 
it have appeared in the newspapers. Is it expedient that any 
further notice should be taken of Dr. Channing's work .'' I 
think it is. I hoped that some person far more competent 
than I can pretend to be, would have engaged in this duty of 
thorough criticism. I am not insensible of the serious re- 
sponsibility of this effort. The well-earned reputation of Dr. 
Channing as a teacher of piety, religion and morality ; his 
fame on both sides of the Atlantic, as a writer ; his relation 
to a numerous and respectable religious assenibly ; his exem- 
plary observance of the rules of life which he prescribes to 



others ; the lustre which he has shed on the intellectual char- 
acter of his country ; all unite to admonish one, that the work 
of Dr. Channing should be treated with all suitable deference, 
and with conscientous sobriety. Yet, when any man, no 
matter who, volunteers to teach to all others, of whatever 
age, experience or sagacity, the alphabet of political science, 
and practical morality in national affairs, he must expect that 
those who are not apt in unlearning what they have spent 
years and years to acquire, and who dissent from the theories 
offered, will express their dissent. This unwelcome labor 
will be performed in as good a spirit as that which prompted 
the work now to be examined. I can give no assurances as 
to motives, because it is not to be credited that one can have 
any motives in this case, but such as are commendable. My 
sole object is, to aid in the best way I can, my fellow citizens 
to form just and sound opinions on very serious subjects. I 
know how easy it is for a man to deceive himself, and to 
overrate his ability to be useful. " I ask " nothing of any 
one, not even to read unless he chooses to read. 



The almost singular reverence which has so long been as- 
sociated with the exemplary character of Dr. Channing, not 
only in this part of the country, but in every part ; and his 
well-earned fame in the polemical discussions in which he has 
been engaged, have secured to him a sacredness, which the 
Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Church seems to be losing 
among not a few of his obedient subjects. In short. Dr. 
Channing has long been thought incapable of conceiving any 
opinion, much less of expressing any, in which error could be 
found, whether pertaining to religion, to morals, or to politics. 
Erroneous opinions coming from such authority, are danger- 
ous in proportion to the preparedness of the world to think 
them right. Though I have read some of Dr. Channing's 
opinions, which struck me as tending strongly to ultraism, I 
have never opened my lips to express that I so thought of 
them. His discussion of Napoleon seemed to me liable to 
this objection. It was treating of things as he would have 



ihem to be, not as they inevitably must be, while man s nature 
is what it is. He, however, expressed no contempt for r^a- 
poleon, as a man, in which I do not fully concur with him^ 

I no doubt, with an audacity which will surprise Dr. 
Channing's admirers, undertake to show, that he is wrong, 
very wrong, morally and politically, perhaps religiously, m 
his book. If he has acquired a dominion over pubhc senti- 
ment which tends to error, little as he may be conscious ot 
the possibility of such consequence, some one ought to be in- 
dependent and audacious enough to warn the world of their 
danger. I presume that Dr. Channing holds himself account- 
able to God, to his country, and to his conscience in the 
publication of his volume. I hope 1 am duly sensible of the 
like obligations in discussing the merits of this volume 

In his introductory remarks the learned and reverend author 
says • " There is one unfaiUng good ; and that is, fidelity to 
the everlasting law written on the heart, and re-written and 
re-pubhshed in God's word." He announces that he is 
about to discuss - Great truths, inalienable rights everlasting 
duties." Why is he now called to this very solemn efiort ? 
Because, as he says, -The present is a moment of be- 
wildering exchcmcnt ; men's minds are stormed and dark- 
ened by strong passions and fierce conflicts : it is a moment of 
absorbing worldliness ; the moral law is made to bow to ex- 
pediency : its high and strict requirements are decried or dis- 
missed, as metaphysical abstractions or impracticable theo- 
ries " Suppose one should, for the purpose of seeing what 
Tto follow, admit all this to be; what then? " It . the 
season to utter great principles without passion, and in the 
spirit of unfeigned and universal good-will, and to engrave 
Im deeply Tud durably on men's minds." i sue be tl. 
unhappy tate of the world, the service which tl^ author pro- 
poses to render is one of inestimable value. He is of that 
Tp on himself ; for he says, that to do this, " Is to do more 
for the world, than to open mines of wealth, or to frame the 
most successful schemes of policy." 

This annunciation is, probably, nnrs to no small part of 
the world in these northern latitudes. There is a certain 
chss of persons amongst us called abolitionists. If the au- 



thor means that this class are under a "bewildering excite- 
ment," of all the truths he has ever uttered, none of them are 
entitled to more respect. If he means that those who oppose 
this class have fallen into this infirmity, I hope to show that 
he is clearly wrong. These opponents have said little, and 
done less, until abolitionists had created such a ferment in the 
South, and drawn such well-deserved but indiscriminate cen- 
sure on the North, as to make it the duty of those who think 
abolitionists wrong, to declare in a manner sufficiently public 
to reach the South, their disapprobation. They did this in 
as calm and sober a manner, as though they had assembled to 
hear an eulogy on a departed patriot. If the reverend author 
means, that those who will not engage in the crusade of eman- 
cipation have " made the moral law to bow to expediency ;" 
and that they shield themselves in thus refusing to wear the 
distinctive cross, by getting behind " metaphysical abstrac- 
tions and impracticable theories," I take on myself to demon- 
strate, that in so refusing, they have conducted themselves as 
moral and religious men should do ; and as patriotic, virtuous, 
and conscientious citizens are solemnly bound to do. 

" It is a moment of absorbing worldliness." This I take 
to be, a chastisement intended both for South and North. Its 
justice, as to the South, depends on the solution of the prob- 
lem, whether the slave owners there have done wrong or right 
in refusing obedience to the command of abolitionists, forth- 
with to manumit their slaves. In all other respects, the 
South are going on, probably, much as they have done, in all 
the moments of the last two centuries. This problem it is 
my purpose to solve- 
As to the North, if this chastisement is bestowed for the 
reason that the disapprovers of the schemes of abolitionists 
have been thereunto moved by the dread of losing the profits 
of traffic in rice, tobacco, cotton and sugar, and their own 
products of industry ; I shall endeavor to show that they have 
far higher motives : motives not less commendable than those 
which prompted the author to send forth this volume. In 
any regard, I see not the justice of his chastisement. The 
North are doing as they have always done. They are making 
all the money they can by enterprise and honest industry. If 



8 



they sought riches, to spend them unworthily, the author 
would be right to chastise them, if this be one of his dutiful 
vocations. They build meeting-houses and churches, main- 
tain clergymen ; endow munificently, literary, scientific and 
charitable institutions. They support schools and teachers 
for the poor ; and give liberally to the destitute. They make 
rail-roads, build steam-boats, set up factories, and employ 
multitudes. All classes labor in some way, with their heads 
or hands, or both, much more diligently and more hours, than 
any slaves of the Southern States. This has been thought to be 
not only for their good, but greatly to their honor. This cas- 
tigation notwithstanding, I will continue to adventure to " Or- 
mus and to Ind" and get as rich as I can ; and in imitation of 
glorious examples, ever the subject of my grateful respect, 
shall endeavor to use my gains in a manner which would se- 
cure to me even Dr. Channing's approbation. Whether any 
are too much abstracted from other duties by this sort of 
worldliness, I cannot say. If they attended more and better 
to some of their political duties, perhaps they might meliorate 
their condition. How well they attend to their religious du- 
ties, the reverend author has opportunities to judge which I 
have not. Before I read Dr. Channing's book (which I did 
not do till within a week) I was under the " bewildering ex- 
citement" of believing, that we were going on flourishingly, 
and in a very honest way ; anti-masonry, anti-slavery, &.C., 
notwithstanding. 



The first chapter is an ingenious disquisition on the nature 
of property. It is an illustration of this abstract truth, — that 
one man cannot have a property in another man. I find 
nothing new in this, but the very handsome manner in which 
that self-evident, abstract notion is maintained. The manner 
may be new, but the truth itself has been uttered in every as- 
sembly which the missionaries of abolition have been able to 
gather. In Massachusetts this has been a universally ac- 
knowledged truth ever since May, 1780. Since that time, 
the same abstract truth has been established in several other 



States. The position assumed is sustained by several argu- 
ments ; — 1 . Because a man in Massachusetts feels that neither 
himself nor his offspring could rightfully be made a slave, 
therefore no man can be a slave. 2. A man has rights , and 
therefore cannot be made a slave. 3. All men are equal ; 
and as slavery implies inequality, slavery must be wrong. 4. 
A man has a property in his own person, mind and strength, 
and one who has this property in himself, cannot be the prop- 
erty of another man. 5. If a man has been made a slave 
by original wrong, no length of time will remove the wrong, 
and create a right. 6. If a man have a right of property in 
another, the principles of moral science enjoin on the person 
owned, to remain in subjection ; whereas a slave may " slip 
his chain" when he can. 7. A man cannot be a slave, " be- 
cause he is created in God's image ;" — " because created to 
unfold god-like faculties, and to govern himself by a divine 
law written in his heart, and republished in God's word." 

The last of these reasons is enforced with the writer's char- 
acteristic eloquence. It may require a mind as clear, com- 
prehensive and penetrating as his own, to understand the ar- 
gument in its full effect. Some things are here asserted 
which I can neither admit nor deny. I have not been so 
constituted as to be able to conceive of certain matters which 
appear to be well known to the author. To this point I shall 
hereafter return. 

For the reasons assigned, or for others, as the case may 
be, it is highly probable that there is not a human being in the 
non-slaveholding States, who is disposed to deny, so far as 
may coneern himself within his own territorial limits., the ab- 
stract proposition, that one man cannot be the property of 
another. It was, therefore, unnecessary to publish this first 
chapter, to engrave any great truth, on any heart in these ter- 
ritorial limits. In this respect, it is probable that the public 
mind is just where it was, on the abstract notion, before the 
book was published. It may not be a difficult matter to show 
that slavery as it exists in the United States, and this abstract 
notion, have nothing to do with each other so far as the peo- 
ple of the non-slaveholding States are concerned. 

The second chapter is entitled Rights. From the 30lh 
2 



10 

to the end of the 48th page, it is a beautiful discussion of the 
relation of individuals to the political State. Such thoughts 
as here expressed, were some times heard among Greeks and 
Romans. They were no more uttered or known from the time 
of Caesar's usurpation, till the year 1648, when they were again 
uttered in our parent country. Selden, Sydney, and Locke 
were among those to whom our patriots of the revolution were 
indebted for confirmation of their own sentiments of individual 
liberty, and political obedience. Probably a better expres- 
sion of similar thoughts has not been made by any writer with 
the single objection, that it tends to ultra refinement. It 
would be well if every American youth were required to 
commit these thoughts to- memory. Not that these thoughts 
show what the members of society are, nor what any govern- 
ment is, but what men, society, and government ought to be. 
I make no exception to these thoughts, on the ground that 
they are in the present and probable state of the world too 
refined for any practical purpose, because it cannot be fore- 
seen to what perfection human nature may attain. The resi- 
due of this chapter is an enlarged view of the thoughts con- 
tained in the first chapter, on ti]e nature of abstract slavery, 
with notliing added but an induction, that a slave virtually 
suffers the wrong o^ robbery. 

To all these abstract opinions on the nature of slavery, we 
have only to repeat the remark, there is nothing new in them, 
but in the manner and terms in which they are stated ; noth- 
ing which any man may be disposed to deny, in the non-slave- 
holding States. But still, so far, the existence of slavery in the 
United States, under the peculiar and singular circumstances 
in which it does exist, remains imtouched, ihough the writer 
intends that all he says shall apply to that subject. 

I can conceive of but three motives which, up to this point, 
could have produced this volume. I^'irst, to raise up in the 
Northern States such a universal and powerful opinion on re- 
ligious and moral duty, as, being known to the South, will 
make them " quail" and emancipate. Secondly, to act di- 
rectly on the men of the South, and cither terrify or persuade 
them, to abandon slavery. 1 ho])e and believe that no such 
thing as the fii-st will be done in the North. As to the second 



11 



it is as probable that Dr. C banning will become a slaveholder 
himself, as effect this purpose. Thirdly, to excite the blacks 
to take " vengeance," and free themselves. Dr. Channing 
need not have said that he did not intend this. It is impos- 
sible. But no work has appeared (so far as I know) so well 
adapted to produce precisely that attempt, if negroes could 
read and understand it. 



The third chapter is entitled " Explanations." The learn- 
ed writer admits, that a slave-owner might be such without 
intentional crime. The long-continued existence of slavery 
may have obscured his vision, and have made him uncon- 
scious of the great wrong done to the slave. This constitutes 
one class of slave-owners. Another class may think slavery 
wrong, but persevere in it from what they think proper mo- 
tives. The third class are those who hold slaves for gain, 
and who ask no questions, as to right or wrong, and are in- 
sensible to all consequences but gain. Dr. Channing deals 
in terrible denunciations against this class. He seems to have 
placed himself on the judgment seat, at least, of this world, 
and to have called every one of this class before him, to learn, 
for the first time, their duties, and the consequences of their 
disobedience. If this language had been addressed to the 
members of one's own parish, it would be for them to judge 
of its propriety or expediency. It seems to me to have not 
the least tendency to produce the effect which the author in- 
tended. 

Whence does Dr. Channing derive his authority to address 
H Virginian, or Carolinian in these terms ; " He extorts, by 
the lash, that labor to which he has no claim, [but ?] through 
a base selfishness. Every morsel of food thus forced from the 
injured, ought to be bitterer than gall. His gold is cankered. 
The sweat of the slave taints the luxury for which it streams. 
Better were it for the selfish wrong-doer of whom I speak, to 
live as the slave, to clothe himself in the slave's raiment, to 
eat the slave's coarse food, to till his fields with his own 
hands, than to pamper himself by day, and pillow his head 



12 

at night, at the cost, of a wantonly injured fellow-creature. 
No fellow creature can be so injured without taking terrible 
vengeance." 

" I know it will be said, you would make us poor." " Be 
poor, then, and thank God for your honest poverty. Better 
be poor than unjust. Better beg than steal. Better live in 
an almshouse, better die than trample on a fellow-creature, 
and reduce him to a brute, for selfish gratification. What ! 
Have we yet to learn that it profits us nothing to gain the 
the whole world, and lose our souls !" 

In this and similar passages, has not the eloquent writer's 
zeal out run his good sense } He has no physical power 
over the slave-owners of the South. They are no more un- 
der his jurisdiction in this matter, as I shall show, than the 
Emperor Nicholas, in his management of the Poles. Does 
he mean to terrify the southern people by his awful denucia- 
tions ? Dr. Channing most expressly disavows and repro- 
bates intention to excite the blacks, to those acts, which 
would in truth be terrible, however certainly utter destruction 
to themselves would follow. It is then moral terror in which 
he ideals. How far his purposes are likely to be accom- 
plished, he must have reflected and decided, as a prudent 
man, before he published such language to the world with, or 
without his justly honored name. The people of the South 
may have heard that there is such a book as the Bible. They 
may have formed some opinion of the degree of faith to which 
it is entitled. It is even possible that they know and believe 
what it reveals ; and have compared the duties of slave- 
holders, with the commands of revelation. Nay, it is even 
possible that they may conscientiously believe, tliat by this 
sacred volume they are justified, on many princij)les, therein 
expressed or implied, that it is their duty not only to them- 
selves, but to the slaves, to continue slavery. If all this 
should happen so to be, what becomes of the denunciations of 
any clergyman, even Dr. Channing, dwelling at the distance 
of one thousand miles, and in a society, for all such purposes, 
totally alien to them. 

Docs he mean to persuade them to emancipate their slaves ? 
His means do not seem to be adapted to the end. Persua- 



13 

tion, is not of kindred with contumely, vituperation and re- 
proach. 

It must strike the people of the South, with some surprise, 
to find themselves charged by a clergyman, at a remote dis- 
tance, with crimes of a most aggravated nature ; and to find 
their souls disposed of with as little ceremony as the Pontiffs 
of Rome disposed of souls, before Martin Luther's time. 

There may be more propriety in the concluding part of this 
chapter, in which Dr. Channing denounces the love of money 
in the North. We of the North are, possibly, under the 
Doctor's dominion. It is true, that only a small part of us 
here in the North, have settled Dr. Channing to minister to 
us, as a spiritual guide, and to warn us of our perils in loving 
the world too much. It is a matter between him and his par- 
ishioners, what degree of rebuke they ought to receive from 
him. The right or the expediency of denouncing those who 
are not of his parish, is not so apparent. He says, " I have 
no desire to shield the North. We have, without doubt, a 
great multitude, who, were they slave-holders, would sooner 
die than relax their iron grasp ; than yield their property in 
men, to justice and the commands of God." This indis- 
criminate charge of a multitude is neither reasonable nor just. 
It would be more satisfactory if some of the multitude had 
been pointed out. The author seems to be less effective here 
in his discipline, than is desirable. If he had named the in- 
dividuals, they might have learned some serious truths, of 
which they may be at present ignorant, and consequently in 
unspeakable peril, according to the author's theory. 

I know not of any inventions, discoveries, or compilations 
in moral science, which prescribe unqualified condemnation 
to those who are honestly ignorant that they have departed 
from the moral law, or have failed to conform to it. I am 
mistaken ; there is one exception. When a child is so young 
as not to know what is right or wrong, and does that which a 
parent thinks wrong, the parent has the right and duty of as- 
sociating pain with the act done, so that when the law "writ- 
ten on the heart" prompts to another commission of the er- 
roneous act, the apprehension of suffering may be sufficiently 
powerful to control the propensity. 



14 

Dr. Channing is not only indignantly eloquent, but inge- 
niously satirical on the immoralities which are incident to a 
state of slavery. If I felt myself at liberty to judge of, and con- 
demn the manners and customs of a people, who have never 
submitted themselves to my decision, on the point, w^hether 
some, and how many of their number were guilty of immorali- 
ties, what these immoralities are, what excuse or apology can 
be made for them, or whether any, I could go with Dr. 
Channing into all proper inquiries. But the southern people 
have not, as a whole community, nor has any of their number 
ever entrusted me with the keeping of their consciences. My 
own conscience forbids me to enter into judgment with my 
fellow men, in any matters which do not aftect me personally. 
I may be greatly in error, but I understand the doctrines of 
revelation to be, that as to those wrongs of which human laws 
cannot take cognizance, and which public opinion cannot cor- 
rect, every mortal is to stand or fall, before the Great Judge 
of all the earth, independently of all other mortals. I see 
every day of my life, acts which seem to me immoral in those 
around me. I dare hardly hope that tlifey do not see the like 
in me. If such acts were done by persons who stood in 
such relation to me, as to make it dutiful to attempt punish- 
ment, correction or advice, the case would be a plain one. 
Happily my empire is a very limited one in this respect. I 
am not a minister of the Gospel, and should make a very poor 
one, if measured by Dr. Chaiming's standard. 

As a general subject, the immoralities incident to slavery 
are open to discussion. I should begin far back, even with 
the Jews. There were cases of great immorality among this 
people, according to modern views. Polygamy and concu- 
binage we all well know to have been practised there, among 
the wisest and the best ; men who were not so debased by 
these practises, that their words, (from which Dr. C. may 
sometimes have enlightened his hearers) have been disi-egard- 
ed by modern nations, even on very serious occasions. 
Polygamy seems to me to be the e\luih(.'r;uit nurse of 
despotism ; and concubinage the unclean devils who enter 
into, and who usurp a dwelling in that mansion, which is 
known by the Christian word home. The existence of such 



15 

evils, teaches me, that it is custom, habit, and "the law 
written in the heart," that settles opinion on the right, and the 
wrong. There is one act, which if committed in Massachu- 
setts, makes one liable to a residence in the penitentiary, and 
which was formerly punished by public execution. The 
same act in England is merely an ecclesiastical offence. In 
France it is not regarded as any offence. In Italy, a woman 
who is not familiarly acquainted with it, almost loses caste in 
society. These are all Christian countries. Thus the nearer 
one gets to the footstool of the throne whereon is seated his 
Holiness, holding the very keys of Heaven, transmitted from 
St. Peter, the lighter lies the rein on human frailty. I would 
not be understood to justify any immorality incident to slavery 
of which Dr. Channing knows, and which he thinks it his duty 
to reprobate. There are vices and immoralities wherever there 
are human beings, some of one sort, and some of another, and 
all to be regretted and mourned over, both for this world and 
the next. Dr. Channing's indignant sarcasm, in the present 
case, proves to me his own clear and just perception of what 
moral duty is. When the world is as pure as this pure man 
would have it to be, the cost of ministers and churches will 
be saved. It is highly honorable to him, and I reverence him 
for it. I hope he lives in a community in which any man and 
every man whose image falls upon his retina, " may cast the 
first stone." I will not enter into judgment with Dr. Chan- 
ning for entering into judgment with the South for their sins. 
He is not, herein, accountable to me. If I gave any opinion 
it would go no further than to suggest, that inasmuch as he has 
no power over the South, the chastisement which he has given 
them, is not likely to persuade them to adopt his views. 

The Fifth Chapter is entitled " Scripture;" and contains 
but few pages. It will be more convenient to notice this in 
another place ; certainly not in any to justify abstract slavery. 

The sixth chapter is on " The means of removing slave- 
ry." After so vivid a picture of the crime, and of the evils 
of slavery, and of the duty of Abolition, one would have ex- 
pected from a writer, who clearly assumes to be wiser than all 
tlie rest of the world, a remedy ; — a remedy which the wisest 
men of this nation have earnestly desired during the last fifty 
years. 



16 

There is a concession in the first page of this chapter, 
which is surprising, and which seems to make something worse 
than useless, all the contents of preceding pages. I say- 
worse than useless, unless the writer has terrified or persuad- 
ed the slave-owner into the duty of emancipation. If he has 
done neither of these he has only irritated slave-owners, if 
they have read his book, and has certainly in common with all 
other abolitionists, made the condition of the slave far worse, 
and his emancipation still more distant, if not hopeless. The 
concession is in these words ; " To the slave-holder belongs 
the duty of setthng and employing the best methods of libera- 
tion, and to no other. We have no right of interference, nor 
do we desire it." It was very unexpected after this very 
proper concession, that the writer should devote a whole 
chapter to instruct the slave-owner as to what he ought to do, 
in a matter wherein " we have no right, nor desire to inter- 
fere." The writer seriously deprecates the evils which would 
arise, if the slave should find out, " that liberty had been 
wrung from an unwilling master, who would willingly replace 
the chain," and he is apprehensive that "jealousy, vindic- 
tiveness, and hatred would spring up to blight the innocence 
and happiness of his new freedom, and make it a peril to him- 
self and all around him." This is very considerate in a 
writer who thinks he has no right " to interfere"! AVhat is 
tlie whole tenor of Dr. Channing's work but an interference ? 
How is his work to be separated from the work of any other 
abolitionist, except that he uses " the whip" and the " lash" 
upon them, as he does upon every body else but the slaves, 
who seem to be protected from being made in God's image. 
I shall spend but a moment on the excursion to Jamaica to 
apply the " lash" there. I have no call to inquire into the 
wisdom or folly of what has been done in this, and other 
British colonies. Every independent kingdom, or state, has 
a right to manage its own affairs as it thinks proper. This is 
a law of which no well-informed man is supposed to be igno- 
rant. Yet Dr. Channing thinks it his duty to publish to the 
world that " he cannot account for the slave-holder's conduct 
(in Jamaica) but by supposing that his uniiappy position, as a 
slavu-huldcr, had r(jbbed him of his reason^ as well as blunted 



17 

his moral sense." One would like to know how Dr. Chan- 
ning understands the 1st and 2d verses of chapter 7th of the 
Gospel according to Matthew. 

I have speculative opinions about the result of the West 
India experiments. If I thought this an occasion on which it 
would be proper to express them, still I think it much more 
to the present purpose, to examine Dr. Channing's scheme 
of emancipation ; which I shall now do. 



In chapter 6, page 118, (besides the concession before 
made,) are found these words : " /n this country no power 
but that of the slave-holding States can remove the evil, and 
none of us are anxious to take the office off their hands." 
Notwithstanding this, and the other concession. Dr. Chan- 
ning proceeds to instruct the slave-holding States how to re- 
move the evil. 

1. " The slave-holders should solemnly disclaim the right 
of property in human beings." 

2. The slave thus freed, " like every other citizen, belongs 
to the community, he is subject to the community, and the 
community has a right and is bound to continue all such re- 
straints as its own safety, and the well-being of the State, de- 
mand." I cannot stop to comment on the theory of a man's 
" belonging" to a community. There are things much more 
serious to look after. 

3. In page 120 : " The slave should not, in the first in- 
stance, be allowed to wander from the plantation in which he 
toils ; and if he cannot be induced to work by rational and 
natural motives, he should be obliged to labor ; on the same 
principle in which the vagrant, in other communities, is con- 
fined and compelled to earn his bread." 

4. Page 123 : "A system of bounties and rewards should 
be introduced." 

5. Page 126 : " Were the whole colored people to be as- 
sembled in Sunday schools, and were the whites to become 
their teachers, a new and interesting relation would be formed 



18 

between the races ; and an influence be exerted which would 
do much to insure safety to the gift of freedom." 

6. Page 127 : " Legislatures should meet to free the slave. 
The church should rest neither day nor night, till the stain be 
wiped away." 

Such is Dr. Channing's system of emancipation ! It does 
honor to his heart. Whether it does equal honor to his head, 
is doubtful. One sees, in this scheme, how great is the error 
of pushing any abstract notion of duly and right, into practi- 
cal execution, without regard to the moral duty of weighing 
all consequences. The first thing to be done is to declare 
the slave free, and to make him a citizen. When a slave 
becomes a citizen^ what right has the "community," if the 
slave has committed no crime, to debar him from the rights of 
a citizen .'' How does this agree with the author's opinions 
on political power, set forth in his second chapter .'' The 
author soon encounters the difficulty of controlling our new 
fellow-citizens, and surmounts this by conceding that the com- 
munity has a right to impose all restraints, and to enforce 
iheni, which its '■'■safety and well-being" demand. The 
author has not defined what he means by " safety," and 
" well-being." He must mean safety from jihysical violence 
at least. He must also mean, safety and well-being from that 
inevitable arrogance, which would follow freedom. If the 
slave becomes a fine ciii/eu, is ih( re to be one law and one 
right for the while n)an, and anoilier for the black man } Why 
should the black citizen be deprived of the right of serving 
his country in its army, navy, militia, in the halls of legisla- 
tion, on the bench of justice ? Why should the black man 
be dc])rived of cultivating his faculties, of increasing his god- 
like powers to the full extent of knowing all that is known to 
teachers of religion, pieiy and morality ? With these at- 
tainments, (which the author lliiuks ihc negro will be able to 
make) why should not an eloquent black enter Dr. Channing's 
pulpit, and teach that "multitude," if any be found there, 
how great the peril of losing their own souls, in the love of 
the world ? Will the black man be contented with any thing 
short of that which the white man enjoys .'' If he think the 
blond beauty of the white man's daughter, the lustre of her 



19 

eye, the graceful curling of her hair, her Grecian lip, prefera- 
ble to the correspondent qualities which he sees in the sable 
beauties of his own race, why should these be a privileged 
property in personal charms, for the white citizen, and conse- 
quent exclusion of the black one ? If all men are equal, in 
what respects are they unequal ? . 

The humane author, unlike most abolitionists, looks, some- 
times, a little to consequences. He encounters another diffi- 
culty, which could not have escaped a man of sagacity. The 
freed man, who now " belongs to the community," may 
choose not to work. What then ? May not any free man, 
who has committed no crime, be idle if he pleases, and starve, 
if he pleases ? What law is there in Massachusetts, which 
compels a man to take food, and continue to live, if it be 
more agreeable to him not to take it, and to die a very agon- 
izing death .'' Dr. Channing insists that his freed fellow-citi- 
zen, who belongs to the community, shall be put to work ; 
and if he will not work by " rational" means, he shall be 
" confined and compelled" to work. What ! imprison a free 
man, " made in God's image, with Godlike faculties, and an 
immortal soul," merely because he chooses to dispose of 
" property in his own strength" according to his own will : 
Imprison him, then. See now this free man, in a condition 
in which he never was, or could be, while a slave. But still 
he will not work. What is now to be done ? He is to be 
" compelled" to work. How .'* Not by the lash. The au- 
thor has a horror of the lash. Starve him. There is no 
other alternative. Among all the horrors of slavery which the 
fertile imagination of the author has displayed on his canvass, 
that of compelling a man to use his own property in his own 
strength, is absent ; because, no slave owner starves his slave. 
The longer he perseveres in this mode of compulsion, the less 
able will the slave be to do what is required. Thus Dr. 
Channing's moral reform brings the free man to imprisonment, 
and death, because, he will not do by the lash, (the worse 
case supposed) what the author admits he must do. But this 
is an extreme case. Not so according to the author's logic. 
He says, " if one man may be held as property, every other 
man may be so held." If one man will not work, then ali 



20 

men may not work. When all men are held as property, the 
author, who knows much that no other man knows, can tell 
us, who will be masters. Thus it is, that theorists push ab- 
stract notions, to extremities. Thus it is, that men who deal 
in spiritualities, and who look at the world, through the key- 
hole of a study, would order its practical affairs. 

Let us now put Dr. Channing's theory to another test. 
I have made a hurried analysis of the last census as to Eastern 
Virginia, which I suppose to be the most favorable district, 
for the Doctor's new theory, on the lowlands between INIary- 
land and Florida. There are, (if I have cyphered right,) 
903,484 colored persons. A part, perhaps one in fifty, are 
free ; but when it comes to the question of " property in 
strenth," they will all be of one class. There are 407,974 
white persons. Let the latter undertake to " compel" the 
former, after the "gift of freedom," to work by " confine- 
ment," and what man, woman, or child, who is not under a 
" bewildering excitement," need be told the inevitable conse- 
quences .'' 



All States, I agree with the author, have the right and duty 
of providing for their own " safety and well-being." I think, 
also, that the same Almighty Power who made this an essen- 
tial quality of human society, has permitted, if not enjoined, 
as esscniial to human welfare, the exclusion from the territo- 
ries of a Slate, of all persons of whatever complexion, whose 
presence would destroy or subvert the purposes for which hu- 
man society was ordained. Now the author says, that " the 
slave, (meaning the freed black man) should not, in the first 
instance, be allowed to wander from the plantation in which 
he toils." Then there is to be a time in which he is to be 
allowed to wander. Wander he will ; and will wander (by 
thousands) into Massachusetts. The freed blacks will stock 
our Alms-houses and Pcnltoitiiu'ies, and the theories of eman- 
cipation will result in transferring the bhick race from their 
present condition, to the class of sinners and convicts. Who, 
in such a case, will be answerable for their iuunortal souls ? 



21 



I take these consequences to be inevitable. Whatever ex- 
citement inflammatory harangues have been able to effect in 
New England audiences, does any man deny, that there is an • 
ineradicable repugnance among all white men, but refined and 
delicate abolitionists, to regard negroes as equals ? A very 
small proportion of the people now dwelling in New England, 
know any thing from having seen slavery in this territory. 
This small number will soon be gone. But the sentiment of 
inequality is universal. It is strongest among that class who 
would find the freed negro his competitor for daily earnings. 
I approve of this sentiment, and will give reasons for so ap- 
proving hereafter. I should think I was recreant in my moral 
duty, if I did not do all I can do to prevent the freed negro 
of the South, from being placed side by side with my fellow 
citizens of whatever class. I am prepared to maintain this 
according to what I understand to be " the law written in the 
heart, and republished in God's word." 

On the suggestion that the white people of the South should 
become Sunday school masters, to the black people, I doubt 
not, that to some extent, this would have taken place if it had 
not been that the mischievous and impertinent zeal of aboli- 
tionists, has impelled the slave-owners to attend to much more 
serious matters. How flimsy is the veil which abolitionists 
hold up between their measures, and the eager interested cu- 
riosity of the slave ! Dr. Channing says, page GO, " No 
fellow creature can be so injured without taking terrible ven- 
geance." Does this writer believe that there is not a mode 
in which this sentiment will reach many a black man's ear in 
the South and West ? What incalculable evil may not this one 
sentiment, proceeding from so eminent a man as Dr. Chan- 
ning, occasion in regions where it will be recognized as a 
command ! It is Dr. Channing who says this, and in the 
name of God ! Abolitionists will treasure up this sentiment, 
work it into all their speeches and inflammatory publications, 
and, for whose ear .'' Only for masters and freed men'! If 
there could be any thing astonishing in the conduct of man- 
kind to any one who knows any thing of what has been done 
on the globe, in the last two thousand years, it would be, that 
men who utter such sentiments, declare themselves God's 



22 

own agents for the interpretation and publication of his will : 
— special missionaries of the Most High, to rebuke sinners, 
and redeem the oppressed ! 

Certainly the men of the South are the last men in the world 
to keep Sunday schools, if Dr. Channing's opinion of them 
is a just one. Suppose a white man should ofier to his col- 
ored fellow-citizen to school him on the Lord's day, might 
not the latter indignantly reply, " You, teach me virtue, 
morals, religion ! Does not Dr. Channing, again and again 
declare, that you are an habitual hardened sinner, so steeped 
in iniquit}'', that eternal punishment in a world to come, is your 
inevitable doom ? Is there any law in the christian code of 
morality, which you have not violated, in his opinion ?" It 
would subject me to the suspicion of having motives far dif- 
ferent from those which have led me to this unwelcome labor, 
if I were to collate from this little volume, the terms of re- 
proach in which the author speaks of his fellow-citizens of the 
South. It is not my purpose, I repeat, to vindicate tliem. 
They have not commissioned me to take charge of their fame ; 
nor have they made Dr. Channing the guardian of their morals. 
Much less have they raised him to a tribunal from which he is 
authorized to condemn them in this world, and the next, un- 
heard. This, however, is not the place to state some princi- 
ples of social and political action, which are not to be stated, 
because no one but myself knows of their existence ; but be- 
cause every body is to be presumed to know them ; and be- 
cause they exist, and are known, like weights and measures, 
to be applied to the particular case. 



The seventh chapter is entitled " Abolitionism." The 
reverend author has herein applied the ninp and the lash on 
the enthusiasts of the day, with a strong arm. This is de- 
cidedly the truest and most practical of all his opinions. The 
diflercnce, and only diflerence, between the author and aboli- 
tionists seems to be, that it is right, moral and dutiful for him 
to do through the medium of the press, precisely the same 
thing whicii he thiidvs the Garrisons, Thompsons and Follens 



23 

(all alien born) may not do, with the help of such men, wo- 
men and children, as they can assemble together. Dr. Chan- 
ning may say in a book, to be read by one person at a time, 
in fine language and most exciting eloquence, those things 
which abolitionists may not say in a very interior manner, to 
assembled numbers. No reason is given for this distinction, 
but that an assembly of persons may be liable to mistake feel- 
ing for reasoning, a liabiHty to which the quiet reader of a 
book would not be subject. In this distinction the author is 
certainly unjust to himself. If he has made no other mistake, 
he has made one in thus underrating his own powers. Per- 
haps the author chooses to be regarded as sole author, of this 
great moral reform. 

In this chapter there are sound and just remarks on mobs, 
in which all good citizens must concur. Several fundamental 
principles on free elective governments are here stated, in the 
best and most striking manner. 

There are these words in the 148th page : " The persecut- 
ed abolitionists have the sympathies of the civilized world." 
In this part of the world they have found precisely such sym- 
pathy as they deserve. In some other places, a similar sym- 
pathy. " The world" here has little inclination to have the 
peace of society disturbed by self-created missionaries, and 
especially such as come from other countries to teach us the 
true meaning of our own institutions, rights and duties. As 
to all such assailants of our tranquillity, I hope they will find a 
residence here too uncomfortable to continue it a moment 
longer than they can get a passage home. As to those of na- 
tive growth, if they do not occasion insurrections in the South, 
or such disgust for the Union in slave-holding States, as to 
cause a separation, I would not interfere in their meetings, nor 
harangues, however often held or made. But whenever the 
tendency of their measures is to endanger the safety and peace 
of the South, or to dissolve the Union, and to involve the 
North in the most profitless and mischievous of all i)ossibl6 
contentions, I hope they will meet with such sympathy, as 
will make them harmless, in whatsoever way that must be 
done. 

Dr. Channing's eighth and last chapter is entitled " Duties." 



24 

Among " duties of Northern men," he ranks that of encour- 
aging manly, moral, religious discussion of slavery. This 
work is to be done in "• individual," not in " public capaci- 
ties." In my humble judgment it is to he done in no capa- 
city ; unless the South invite the North to such co-operation 
as the South may indicate. Public opinion is as sound and 
righteous, on the abstract point of slavery in the North, as it 
is on the duty of maintaining schools, worshipping the Deity, 
performing promises and covenants ; or aiding to extinguish a 
conflagration in a neighbor's house. But I will not anticipate, 
what I have elsewhere to say on this subject. 

I agree with Dr. Channing, that the bearing of the South 
has often been indiscreet and oflensive. How this can be 
prevented I know not, but in two ways : one is to send such 
men to Congress, if they can be found among us, as know 
how to shoot others down, and establish one of the worst kinds 
of despotism, that of the pistol. The second is, to send to 
Congress, men of war, in words. The first mode will find no 
countenance in this part of the country. As to the other, I 
imagine that wedo as well as other States do. In some in- 
dividual instances, we (of Mass.) stand second to no State. 
It is, however, remarkable, that Dr. Channing should have 
engaged in this tender solicitude for the North, when in the 
very same book that expresses this solicitude, he exhorts all 
men of the North, to spare no exertion to cflect the subver- 
sion of the long established institutions of tiie South ; and to 
push mere abstract principles to results which no mind can 
think of without dismay. 

Excepting in the matter of the Tariff, (on which I am a 
little sensitive, being one of those zealously engaged in money- 
making) the South have not assumed to bear harder upon the 
North, than is incident to the different perceptions of people 
of very different occupations, and views of interest. But 
now, if I were a Southern man, I should think no bearing too 
hard against the spirit of abolition ; nor any measure too harsh, 
which would exclude from slave-holding territories, mission- 
aries and publications, which have any tendency to change 
the existing order of society. ]*'rom what T have seen and 
heard of men of the South, I believe they have \ery little of 



25 

that universal benevolence as to the North, which constitutes 
the most attractive brilliancy in the character of Dr. Chan- 
ning. Their pursuits and habits are, in the nature of things, 
essentially different from ours. They hate most sincerely, 
merchants, ship-owners, buying and selling, and drawing 
riches from the sea. They hate the thrift and prosperity 
which come of incessant action of body and mind. They re- 
pine that we should grow rich and populous, while they are 
stationary, or declining, though it is the West, not the North, 
which has advanced so much of them. This comes of the 
law written in the heart, and which, (as I shall show) God's 
word was sent to repeal. But happily, we are married to 
them, and they to us. Though we may not like each others' 
tastes in all respects, and though time and circumstance may 
have developed traits of character, (none more touching than 
the new discoveries of the North on the science of moral 
philosophy) which makes the Union less delightful than the 
dream of young love may have anticipated ; — yet, we have a 
numerous progeny in the eflects of our union, in which both 
parties are deeply interested. The most intolerable of all 
things is, to upbraid each other, before company, for personal 
defects, delinquencies in conduct, and erroneous opinions, 
which the upbraided party does not think to be such ; and 
when there is no tribunal on earth to which the parties can 
appeal and have their differences settled. I have heard law- 
yers say, that when there are gross faults on both sides, courts 
do not interfere, but leave the parties to go on railing, crimi- 
nating, and squabbling, as they respectively may think most 
to the purpose. 

I have gone over Dr. Channing's book in one view of it. 
I hope I have done him no injustice, so far. I shall with un- 
feigned diffidence, add some remarks on " the will of God," 
and on the duties of Northern to Southern men, in relation to 
slavery. I have conscientiously tried to find out my duty, 
and I shall perform it to the best of my ability. But I do 
not assume to dictate to any one ; I leave to every one the 
same freedom in morals and religion, which I shall maintain 
for myself; provided always that they do not disturb my law- 
ful and " inalienable rights." 
4 



26 

In performing this task, it will be seen that I account with 
creatures made of clay like myself, as little as Dr. Channing 
does. Yet, I am not a winged insect striving to tease a lion — 
no magpie who chatters, from a secure eminence, at the no- 
ble Newfoundler, who could tear it in pieces. Nor am I en- 
vious and malicious like him, who said, — 

O thou, who with surpassing glory crowned, 
Looli'st, &c. * * * * 

* * * How I hate thy beams. 

I shall not, therefore, submit this book to severe criticism, 
as coming from a scholar, and a logician. I am looking at 
the " great truths" which it announces to the world. These I 
will fearlessly and thoroughly, but respectfully, examine. 



As I have undertaken to show the unsoundness of Dr. 
Channing's opinions on moral duty, it is not enough to have 
passed thus hastily, over the general object of his book ; it 
remains, therefore, to inquire into the foundation on which 
that object rests. 

What is the " law written on the heart" ? It is " the law 
republished in God's word." The world has labored under 
a great mistake, some 1800 years. It has been supposed that 
our Saviour came to make a new revelation of God's will, be- 
cause there was no law written on man's heart ; or, if there 
ever had been, that idolatry, superstition, vice, crime, and 
depravity had utterly erased it. Such, at least, historians, 
sacred and profane, have declared the state of the world to 
have been, when revelation was made. But I am bound to 
consider myself mistaken in this, because Dr. Channing is a 
deeply learned Theologian. Admit, then, there is a law 
written on the heart ; what is it, and how to be knoicn 9 Not, 
I think, by answering, that it is the same law that one finds 
in the Bible, but by showing that the acts, or, at least, the 
professions of mankind, accord with the law of the Bible, 
even if they never happened to know of the existence of that 
book. If the law was written on every heart, the painful 
scenes ol our Saviour's mission might have been spared. 



27 

If the law is written on the heart, it must be found wherever 
there is a human heart. It would not have been written i/iere 
as a moral guide, nor written there at all, unless the being 
whose heart it is, could know that it was so written. No one 
is guilty of a breach of law, the existence of which he could 
not know. How can it be ascertained, (laying aside the " re- 
publication") that there is such law .'' By some sort of recog- 
nition of it, in acts done, admissions of its existence and 
force, judgments for breach of it. There can be no other, 
since the human eye cannot read the living heart. So far as 
one can judge from observing what is done, professed, or 
judged of, since the earth was repeopled, there cannot be a 
more vague, contradictory, and utterly irreconcilable code, 
than that which would come from human hearts.. 

Let us illustrate this, by the opinions, acts, professions, and 
judgments which have occurred in this very matter. of slavery^ 

Every body knows that from about the year 1550, to about 
fifty years ago, the Christian nations of Europe did not im- 
agine it would be any violation of the law written on the heart, 
nor of any law in God's word, to get slaves from Africa. 
The traffic was first engrossed by the Portuguese, and after- 
wards engaged in by all maritime christian nations. It has 
been so often repeated, it hardly seems necessary to say, that 
the introduction of African slavery in America, was dictated 
by humanity in a prelate. Commiseration for the enslaved 
Indians, induced the amiable, moral and religious Las Casas, 
to substitute Africans. If any man ever knew what was 
written on the heart, and republished in God's word, it must 
be presumed that Las Casas knew it. No one can deny, that 
numerous acts, especially in morals and religion, have been 
held in one age of the world, unquestionably right, and in 
another unquestionably wrong ; nor deny, that in the same 
day, the same acts are thus differently viewed, and by pro- 
fessed Christians too, in the same city. 

It is certainly possible, notwithstanding Dr. Channing''s 
fundamental rules, that the slave-owner may feel himself jus- 
tified, in continuing slavery, although every man in non-slave- 
holding States may be of a different opinion. I am compelled 
to say, that I discern nothing to sustain Dr. Channing's theory 



28 

of the law written on the heart, and of the repubhcation of it. 
I may be wrong, but I suppose that hearts may be by nature 
good, bad, or both in degree ; that a good heart may become 
depraved, a bad one reformed ; and that conscience arises 
from custom, habit, education and disciphne. 

So far from agreeing with Dr. Channing that there is a law 
written on the heart, which commands humanity, justice, uni- 
versal love, and benevolence ; I believe, if there be any law 
written there, that it commands man to enslave, not only the 
body, but the mind of his fellow men. This is so, unless 
our daily experience is to be discredited, and all history treat- 
ed as a fable. Take the existing state of things in this coun- 
try. Suppose that Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, 
James K. Polk, Amos Kendall, and Blair (the editor of the 
Globe), and men whom I could name in Boston, and even in 
my own comparatively small town, could make all others 
obedient, according to the law written on their hearts, how 
long would Dr. Channing be allowed to express his opinions 
through the press ; how soon should I be taken to guillotine 
for daring thus to associate these names ? 

If we go back through history, everywhere the same 
mournful account is found, of the law written on man's heart. 
Multitudes of cases throng upon my memory. One will be 
enough. From 1227, to 1229, hundreds of thousands of hu- 
man beings died in the South of France, by the sword, by 
conflagrations, by the sack of cities, and by torture. Pope 
Innocent the 3d, who undertook to construe " God's word" 
for himself, ordered a desolating, murderous, fiendlike war- 
fare, against whom ? Christians. What had they done .'' 
That which our puritan forefathers did — insist on simple primi- 
tive faith, and worship. But if one object, that this case was 
too much merged in the darkness of the middle ages, too long 
before the reformation, vv'as it any better, except in degree, 
for one whole century, at least, after the reformation ? The 
" law written on the heart" had not changed ; certainly not in 
*' Bloody Mary's" time. What was this law of the heart, 
even with our puritan forefathers, in relation to the (Quakers .'' 
There Ims been no despotism on earth so searching, merci- 
less, desolating and cruel, as that which has been exercised 



29 

by man over the mind of man, in the name of God. The 
political despotism which fills so many pages of history, is 
the mere sport of children with things of a toy shop when 
compared with that horrible company of crimes, which follow 
the impious assumptions of mortals to announce and to exe- 
cute the will of the Almighty ? What is it that the world has 
been struggling for through oceans of blood, ever since the 
English revolution of 1688 ? Is it not, that by establishing 
constitutions, by making equal and just laws, by securing the 
faithful administration of them, the law written in the heart, 
might cease to make the human family wretched ? Is it not, 
to free the human mind from the shackles which kings and 
priests had forged and fastened ; and to leave it to every ra- 
tional creature to reverence and to worship the Awful Majesty 
of the Divine Being as he may think right ? With what 
astonishment, then does one read, and in this age of the world, 
in this country, and from the celebrated Dr. Channing : and 
in addressing men, who are no more accountable to him, than 
he to them : " i?e poor then, and thank God for your honest 
poverty. Better be poor than unjust. Better beg than steal. " 
Dr. Channing must permit me to say, that he reminds one 
of Hildebrand (Gregory the Vllth.) His language is not 
that, in my humble judgment, of practical philosophy, nor of 
Christian humility, but of professional ultraism. Our Saviour 
armed his disciples with no sharp-wounding instruments, 
whether made of muscles and nerves, flesh and blood — or 
steel — or goosequills. 

I rejoice that I live in a land, in which neither Dr. Chan- 
ning, nor any other man, has a right to construe " God's 
word" for me ; nor right, to force on me, abstract truths, re- 
gardless of all moral, social, and political consequences. He 
may teach all who choose to listen to him, by gentle and per- 
suasive appeals, the morality by which it is most profitable to 
live in this world ; the punishment which will, inevitably fol- 
low a life of wickedness and vice, and the rewards which w^ill 
follow a life well spent. Neither God nor man has given him 
any higher authority. Give to any man on earth but Dr. 
Channing, honest zeal, the power to interpret God's word as 
he thinks right, arm him with the terrors of excommunication, 



30 

make him sole judge of spiritual offences, give him physical 
power to execute his judgments, and we shall soon see what 
that law is which is written on the heart, and republished in 
God's word. 

If the law written on the heart is the same which is repub- 
lished in the Bible, the law republished in the Bible, is the 
same law which is written on the heart. It is obvious that 
Dr. Channing has ascertained this convertible axiom by read- 
ing the law as he finds it in his own heart. Like the tenant 
of the solitude of Patmos, Dr. Channing has attained to a 
sublimity which is not of this world. Happy, happy would 
it be if every human heart were like his own. Then might 
we worms of the dust take the harp of David, and assume to 
join in the anthems of seraphs and cherubim. If I believed 
with Dr. Channing, that the law which I find in the Bible is 
the same law which is written on the heart, never again should 
I open that instructive, chastening, comforting, sublime and 
sacred volume. 

AVithout this volume, life after life might be spent in vain 
attempts to solve the problem, by what partnership of good 
and evil genii was the tragi-comedy of human existence in- 
vented .'' 



The universality of Dr. Channing's benevolence is very 
imposing. Is he not much in advance of his own age ? May 
he have that high eulogy on his fame, which immortalizes the 
name of Bacon. The field of the two laborers is, however, 
essentially difTerent. Bacon thought and wrote as a philoso- 
pher, on the operations of the mind — the natural world in 
many branches, and on morals, lie dealt in the princi})les of 
science, and developed truths, which always must be truths, in 
every age of the world, though not comprehended in his own. 
He left a rich legacy for far distant generations. Dr. Chan- 
ning deals in " great truths ; inalienable rights, everlasting 
duties." The diflerence between Lord Bacon and Dr. 
Channing is, that he insists on an immediate, " uncomprom- 
ising" application of his theories, whether the world be ready 



31 

for them or not. He condemns to everlasting punishment all 
who will not instantaneously adopt and apply his theories. 
Most unfortunately, Dr. Channing is forbidden, by as high 
moral duty as any which he inculcates, not to do that which 
he has done. At least such is my perception of this matter, 
and I shall with all proper deference, give the reasons on 
which this opinion is founded. 

But as introductory, let us see whether this spirit of uni- 
versal benevolence tends. Has that unsearchable power, 
whose name the reverential Brahmins of India only write, and 
believe it impious to utter, forsaken his own work ? Is not 
his providence over all that he has created ? Is all that has 
been done, and is now doing ; and all that has been, and is 
now suffered, by man's agency on man, in the four quarters 
of the earth, ordered, or permitted, or forbidden, by this Om- 
niscient Judge of right and wrong ? What acts have been or- 
dered, what permitted, what forbidden ? What purposes had 
the Almighty, in creating this globe, and making it the habita- 
tion of successive generations, and dividing these into nations, 
separated by rivers, mountains, untraversable sands, and 
oceans ; speaking hundreds of different languages, professing 
every variety of religion from the most degrading fetechism to 
the sublime doctrines of the gospel ; and practising in some 
parts, as religious homage, acts which are deemed in others, 
the grossest immoralists, and the most odious crimes ? What 
mortal can assume to know what is God's will in this ? 

Is it the purpose of the Almighty in his own time, and in 
his own manner, to develope his designs, bringing good out 
of seeming evil, in the long train of ages ? Is it his purpose, 
by raising up illustrious minds from time to time, gradually to 
enlighten human reason, and to discipline human propensities, 
which in one degree are odious vices, in another admirable 
virtues ? If so, what a mistake does he make, who in his zeal 
to do good, assaults the deep rooted prejudices, and the cher- 
ished interests of his fellow men, taking on himself the res- 
ponsibility of defeating God's designs ! 

There are men whose benevolence is not surpassed by that 
of Dr. Channing, but who understand " duty" in a very dif- 
ferent light. There are men who sincerely wish that none of 



32 

their fellow creatures, in their own community, were poor and 
miserable, through ignorance and vice ; that the earnings of 
labor were not expended for intoxicating drinks ; that every 
man's child could be so educated as to comprehend the utility 
of virtue ; the worth of civil and religious liberty, and the 
best means of preserving them. There are men who wish 
that there were no envyings, jealousies, backbitings, slanders ; 
no tenants of almshouses or penitentiaries ; — who wish that 
the clergy knew their own business and did not interfere with 
that of others ; and who wish also, that all who are trusted 
with political power were wise, consistent, honest and con- 
scientious ; and that all electors were discerning enough to 
choose such men, and intelligent enough to obey them when 
chosen. 

And if this benevolence is to be expanded, and embrace 
the whole world, there are men who sincerely wish, that the 
laboring classes of Ireland, England, France, Italy and all the 
divisions of Europe, ivere not loorse off than the laboring 
blacks of the Southern States. [Southern blacks are in en- 
viable felicity compared with full half of all the population of 
Ireland.] They may wish if they dare to, that God had 
made all things, in human shape, of the same color, of the 
same physical and intellectual construction ; and that it had 
been his pleasure to order that the tenants of African sands, 
should have had the same powers to invent, discover and me- 
liorate that he has bestowed on another race of different com- 
plexion, in northern climes. Is not the African in his own 
land, precisely in the same condition in which he was, when 
first heard of elsewhere in the world ? 

If this universal benevolence is to work beyond our own 
territories, what is our duly towards the Emperor of Russia .'' 
What is our duly to benighted Asia ? Can any thing be more 
shocking to the spirit of Christianily than ihe despotism in 
which the Brahmins of India hold millions and millions, in 
body and in mind ? What docs " ihity" demand as to thrice 
as niaiiy millions tlicrc, as there are in the United States, who 
are not only in the most abject degradation of morals and re- 
ligion, but in the most servile submission from craving daily 
wants ? it is uKJurnful to " universal benevolence" to know. 



33 

that the three hundred and thirty-three millions of China, 
without exception, from the Emperor downward, may be 
beaten, by law and custom, at the will of any supejior, ni f,ny 
time with the bamboo^ which is raliier worse than " the whip 
and the lash ;" and that this sI)ould be so, for thousand of 
years. It is still more distressing to know, that the abomina- 
ble religion of Mohammed holds about one sixth part of all 
immortal souls on the earili in its rigid and blighting desi)0iism. 
Now, not one of the nations, or persons, who have been men- 
tioned, is more or less within the range of this ex[iansive be- 
nevolence, than the blacks of the Scutli., and might with equel 
propriety awaken the author's eloquence, as can be, and will 
be proved, to every unprejudiced mind. Would these things 
be so, if it were not God's will that they should be ? It can- 
not be doubted that it is consistent with that will, for pious 
missionaries to engage in the perilous enterprise of teaching to 
these unfortunate millions, the truth of the gospel ; and every 
good man must wish that it may be consistent with that will, 
that their wonderful efforts should meet with correspondent 
success. This is a very different affair from that of inter- 
meddling with slavery in the Southern States. The one may 
have been commanded by the gospel, the other, in my opin- 
ion, is clearly forbidden by the same authority, and bylaws of 
man's making, which every good citizen is bound to obey. 



I have further to offer such reasons as occur to me to show, 
that Dr. Channing's theories are wrong in relation to the 
established and unchangeable order of human society : — wrong 
as to slave owners : — wrong as to slaves : — wrong as to the 
whole of the American people : — and therefore, morally and 
religiously wrong. 

Man's wants, infirmities, and sympathies, make society in- 
dispensable to him. The idea that society was entered into 
by contract, and that men give up part of their natural rights 
when they enter into it, for the purpose of securing to them- 
selves other rights, originated with that licentious man Jean 
Jacques Rousseau. He was the author of the " Social Com- 
5 



34 

pact," a work as irrational as some of his other works are un- 
moral. Men were never out of society. The smallest and 
most barbarous tribe ever found, had some sort of government 
by usurpation, consent, or usage. The natural enmity of 
tribes against each other and the common interest to have 
some authority to preserve interior tranquility and security, 
must have been the original principles on which governments 
were founded. Each society was ever as independent, as to 
all its own affairs, as its force of arms, or the acquiescence, 
or the imbecility of its neighbors, would permit. In all the 
space of time which history covers, all distinct states and na- 
tions have asserted this independence, and it has never been 
yielded but by conquest. It is now, and long has been an 
established principle of the law of nations, that each state, 
kingdom, empire, great or small, is supremely sovereign and 
independent, as to every person and thing, within its own ter- 
ritorial limits. Whatever its members are permitted to do as 
to each other ; and whatever acts of tyranny, however im- 
moral, odious and shocking, ihe sovereign power may see fit 
to do, as to its own subjects, no cause of offence is thereby 
given to any other sovereign or his subjects. Suppose a state 
should mal'Q a law, that all persons should be drowned who 
could not earn their own living, nobody beyond the limits of 
that state could lawfully, and therefore, not morally, demand 
the repeal of that law. 

If Dr. Channing should hear of such a case, and think it to 
be as bad as he thinks slavery to be, and that he had a call 
from God to interpose, what ought he to do according to the 
■established rules of society ? He may induce his own sove- 
reign, if he can, to speak to the sovereign of this wicked state, 
(for no sovereign has ears for any body beyond his own limits 
unless a sovereign speaks) to abandon this abominable usage. 
If he be successful, and the interference be deemed to be im- 
pertinent, and the usage be continued, the parties have come 
to the last resort and war ensues, if Dr. Channing's sovereign 
think that measure indispensable. There is one other course. 
This call from on High may be obeyed by going personally 
into the sovereignty where this deplorable evil exists, and by 
exciting the subjects there to peiition, resist, rebel, and take 



35 

arms. But if this divine missionary should be considered as 
an insolent and seditious intruder, and dealt with accordingly, 
he might have the satisfaction of dying in the cause of human- 
ity. Probably such would be his fate. 

I offer no books of authority to sustain these truths. There 
are lawyers who would lend me their books and find the very 
pages for me. But I need no authority but common sense ; 
and have not stated such truths because I am the only man 
who knows of their existence, or because I am the only one 
who thinks them incontrovertible. Every well informed 
American citizen knows them to be so. They are known 
and respected as truths, because the Almighty power who 
created society by creating man, has ordained that these truths 
should be known, admitted and respected, that the very pur- 
pose for which society was ordained, should not be defeated. 
If the members of one sovereignty were at liberty, at their 
own motion, to interfere and attempt to regulate the affairs of 
sovereignties to which they are alien, confusion, wars and 
tumult would be unceasing. 

I do not apprehend that any man versed in authorities, can 
produce a single one which will contradict any thing which is 
here advanced, although my own knowledge of these things is 
derived from sources common to all educated men, the histo- 
ry, customs and usages of civilized nations. 

There can be no moral duty more imperative with a well 
informed conscientious man, than to abstain from the violation 
of general rules which the good sense of nations has establish- 
ed for their mutual safety, security and independence. It is 
not a justification to any man in the violation of these rules, 
that he thinks himself more religious, more moral, more wise 
than all other men ; and that he has views of the law written 
on the heart and republished in God's word, which he is spe- 
cially called on to announce. However honest, conscientious 
and fervent he may be, he may be mistaken. There is a very 
strong presumption that he is so, when a great majority of the 
best informed men in his own community, and of his own 
reverend profession, and a much greater majority of religious, 
conscientious and- moral statesmen and lawyers differ entirely 
from him in judgment, and adhere to the rules above slated as 



\ 



36 

their bounden moral duty. There are a very small number 
indeed of the latter discription of persons, (I could not name 
half a dozen uho have any pretension to eminence) who do 
not differ entirely fiom Dr. Channing. 

If there are such general rides, and I think there are ; if 
they ought to be strictly adhered to, and I think they should 
be, then I am justified, as far as my opinion goes, in publish- 
ing, on a matter of genera) public interest, and in commenting 
on a voluntaiy public act of Dr. Channing, that his theories 
are morally wrong as to society. 

Dr. Channing's theories are ivrong to the Soulhern States. 
True it is, that Massachusetts and the slave-holding states, 
are one and the same country, for certain defined and national 
purposes. As to all other purposes, they are as distinct, sov- 
ereign and independent of each other as the several states, 
kingdoms and empires of Europe, and neither more nor less 
so. It may be a waste of labor to undertake the demonstra- 
tion of a truth which no person of the age of twenty, dwel- 
ling in this country, ought to be supposed ignorant. The 
colonies were settled at various limes and under vaiious grants. 
Tliuugh under the dominion of the same King at all times, 
they were ever treated hy him as independent of each other, 
and they ever treated each other as independent. In 1764, 
an attempt was made at .Albany to unite some of the states- 
It was unsuccessfid. The Dec laration of Independence re- 
cognizes these sovereignties. The articles of confederation 
in .Iidy, 177S, is a treaty made by sovereignties. The Na- 
tional constitution in Septendjer, 1787, is a union of these 
sovereignties, and hy the j)eople of the states for certain pur- 
pos's. The te.ith article of amendment is, "The powers 
not (l(;le::;aied to the United Slates hy the Constitution, nor 
prohlbiieil by it to the states, are reserved to the stat(,'s le- 
SDeciively, or to the people." Slavery is expressly reccg- 
nizni as existin'.;;, and no |)ower is delegated to the United 
Slates hilt that of preventing iinporiaiion after a certain day. 
The unipiestionahle right of !-la\ e-holding states, is, to niar.rge 
all animate and inanimate objects within their respective limits, 
35 they respecti\ ely think proper, excepting oidy the power 
delegated to the United Stales. As iio delegated power re- 



37 

lates to slaves excepting in the matter of importation, power 
over slaves is " reserved to the states" or " to the people" 
— as clearly as the right of incorporating a bank, or of set- 
tling a clergyman. 

As one sovereignty cannot interfere in the internal concerns 
of another ; as Massachusetts and all slave-holding states are 
respectively sovereign as to all matters of property within their 
respective limits ; as slaves are property ; as Dr. Channing 
has admitted all this to be so, by being a citizen of ihe state 
of Massachusetts, and has solemnly recognized the existence 
of slavery, by being a citizen of the United States, and the 
power of those who are slave-owners, and of those only, to 
continue it forever or remove it forthwith, his theories are 
lorong as to the Southern States ; surely morally so, if his the- 
ories, carried out, would be a breach of a solemn contract. 



Dr. Channing's theories are wrong as to non-slave-holding 
States. If wrong as to Southern States, it follows, as neces- 
sarily as one day must follow another, while die sun is lumin- 
ous and the earth revolves, that they are wrong as to the 
Northern States. A state is a society of human beings, who 
have agreed, (where usurpation has not occurred) that they 
will express their will by the acts and words of a selected por- 
tion of their number. Not for the reason, according to Dr. 
Channing, that there are " Rights — Rights older than so- 
ciety" but because human beings are, whether they so will or 
not, but by God's will, inevitably in society. Theoretically^ 
rights are any thing which human fancy may make them ; 
practically, they are whatever any community may have made 
them ; and different in all communities. Being in society 
men make rules, more commonly by custom, than by positive 
legislation, to make each other do right, and to jjrevent their 
doing wrong to each other ; (which by the law written in the 
heart, they are most exceedingly prone to do,) and to punish 
those who do wrong as a just consequence of crimes, and to 
deter others from imitating their example. The will of a 
State can be expressed (the single matter of war excepted) no 



38 

otherwise, than by the acts and words of the official function- 
aries commissioned for that purpose. The will of Massachu- 
setts was very proj)erly expressed this morning, by the exe- 
cution of a couple of men for obeying the law which happen- 
ed to be written on their hearts. This was done by the inva- 
riable rule of words and acts, of persons thereunto authorized. 
If all the people of Massachusetts could have assembled this 
morning, and had unanimously voted that these two men should 
not have been put to death, the little piece of writing which 
one man had signed, and which another held, would have been 
a very sufficient reason why that vote should be disregarded, 
and the culprits hanged. 

If our State have occasion next June, to communicate with 
the State of New-Hampshire, it can be done no otherwise 
than by words and acts of our Governor addressed to his Ex- 
cellency Isaac Hill. His Excellency could not hear the uni- 
ted voice of 600,000 people of Massachusetts, if they were 
gathered around his triumphal car. If all the people of 
Massachusetts sincerely believed, that the law written in the 
heart, and republished in God's word demanded of them to 
call on the legislature of that State, to abrogate hs fundamen- 
tal laws^ and to prevent the fastening of a despotism on the 
mind, destructive of civil liberty, and necessarily inductive of 
military despotism over the property which every man has in 
his "own strength," it could be done no otherwise than by 
a communication from our Governor, to his Excellency Gov- 
ernor Hill. 

It is a very different thing to advise the citizens of New- 
Hampshire, as to the best manner of execiUinii; fundamental 
laws.) as in the choosing of one man instead of another, in party 
politics ; making roads,, employing strength in profitable in- 
dustry. Advice may be taken or rejected, and no harm en- 
sues, as to the independence of one State on another. 

Dr. Channing has assented, in common with all citizens of 
his own State, that he will do no act in relation to ihc funda- 
mental Imcs and rights arising therefrom, in other States, 
which will bring upon his own State and his own fellow-citi- 
zens, the charge of a deliberate attempt to violate the laws and 
disturb the Iraiiquilily of other Slates, and of its citizens. 



39 

Whatever horror he may feel for acts elsewhere done than 
where he owes allegiance, he can do no act which will subject 
his own State to reproach, peril, and perhaps, war, without 
an obvious violation of the duties of a good citizen. 

Dr. Channing may insist throughout the longest life of man, 
with all the powers of his able mind, and with his admired 
eloquence, that these opinions are " metaphysical absurdities, 
and impracticable theories," but he will find no well-informed 
men who will consider them such. If I am asked for " au- 
thorities," I again say that I do not deal in them, nor need 
them. I have one, (unknown to none but enthusiasts) the 
common sense of mankind exemplified in the history of all 
civilized time ; an authority which requires no professional 
learning, and which all intelligent merchants, farmers, mechan- 
ics, and yeomen, know as well as I do. The promotion and 
the cherishing of an excitement among people of one sover- 
eignty, concerning opinions, customs, laws and principles, 
deemed right in another ; or whether right or wrong, main- 
tained there by law, cannot be in conformity to God's word, 
nor any law written by him in human hearts. I conclude, 
therefore, that Dr. Channing's theories are wrong as to non- 
slave-holding States, and inconsistent with the duties which 
every one owes to his own State, and to his fellow-citizens 
therein. 

Wrong as to slave-owners. This is an unavoidable corolla- 
ry from the aforegoing propositions ; but this, to borrow an 
expression of the author, " needs a fuller exposition." What- 
ever Dr. Channing has said, or can ever say, slave-owners do, 
and will continue to believe, that they have as perfect a right 
of property in slaves, as Dr. Channing has to believe, that he 
could not own a slave. They are as sincere, fixed and im- 
moveable in their opinions, as the Doctor may be in his own. 
They have some pretensions to adhere, which the Doctor has 
not. They were born, "raised," (as they say) and have 
lived in these opinions ; as was the fact with their fathers for 
two whole centuries. But Dr. Channing was born, raised, 
educated, enlightened by God's word, visited the slave re- 
gions, continued some twenty years in ministering from that 
word, and then, so far as the public knows, " suddenly there 



40 

f.bined around about him a light from Heaven." His conver- 
sion is seen in his epistle to the world. The men of the 
South found slavery interwoven with all their political and so- 
cial relations, with their daily bread, — in a word, with all that 
men live to have, to hope, oi- to enjoy. The learned author 
is secure from the sins which he chaiges on others, far remote 
from slavery, in ease ar.d affluence, sure lo live as well as he 
ever has done, in the respect and reverence of an adn)iring 
community. Ought he not to Lave had some tenderricss for 
the prejudices of long-continued habit ; for that sensibility to 
one's own interest, the duty of self-preservation, which are 
laws written on the heart, whether any other be wiitien there 
or not. Admit that the vision of the slave-owner is obscur- 
ed ; and that his position as slave-owner, (as the author re- 
marks of .Jamaica planters) has " robbed him of his reason, 
as well as blunted his moral sense ;" — and suppose that Dr. 
Channing, blessed with an admirable clearness of vision, a 
reason freshly enlightened, and a moral sense keen as the 
sword of justice, was called of God lo refoim the tremendous 
evil of slavery ; — Then, might not one have expected from 
him, a little more of that s|)irit of kindness, gentleness, and 
meekness, which is the eminent beauty of the Gospel .'' 

Dr. Channing knows that there are such practical rules as 
have been stated. He disregards them. He annihilates all 
the boundaries of political societies, and makes of the whole 
world one expansive field for the labors of humanity. This 
is much like that field of which Roman Pontiffs were overseers, 
with undisputed authority, for a thousand years. Let us see 
how that field was cultivated. In 1003, Pope Sylvester II. 
ordered Robert, king of France, to repudiate Bertha his wife, 
because she was his cousin. The astonished monarch re- 
fused ; the pope cxronnnunicated, and made him so niisera- 
ble from the horror of all his subjects to obey him, that at the 
end of three singularly wretched years, he submitted. This 
was a case in which all elements of government concentrated 
in one man, with superadded power from Heaven. In 1538, 
Pope Paul III. cxcommiaiicated Henry VIII. of England, 
because he chose to go contrary lo the Pope's will ; declared 
him deposed, and invited other powers to make war on him ; 



41 

but Henry had discovered that a Pope's bull was as harmless 
as the noise of an animal of the same name, when closely- 
confined in a pound. This was a case in which the element 
of executive power was wanting. Dr. Channing's case is 
much the same. Lest it be thought that I mean to allude in- 
decorously to historical facts, which 1 certainly do not on 
this, or any other occasion, let us change the scene. 

One is a Christian missionary to Mahommedans. He be- 
gins : — Your prophet was a profligate impostor. That book 
which he pretended to have received, page by page, as writ- 
ten by the hand of God, and sent down by the hand of Ga- 
briel, was a fabrication by a purchased and a corrupt Jew. 
He promised you an earthly heaven to induce you to sharpen 
your swords, lay the bleeding world at his feet, and give him 
an immortal fame. You worse than fools ! You abominable 
sinners ! Abandon the trash in that book which you call sa- 
cred, take my book which is sacred. Believe in it, instantly, 
every word from " In the beginning," to " Amen," or you 
will " lose your own souls." This would not make converts. 
As little likely is it to make converts to Dr. Channing's 
theories, to begin by denouncing slave-owners as being op- 
pressors of humanity, unjust, cruel, tyrannical, thieves, rob- 
bers, who ought to encounter " terrible vengeance." 

I cannot spare time to draw the conclusion from these 
premises. Happily, there is not an unprejudiced man in any 
non-slave-holding State, who cannot draw, for himself, the 
conclusion, that Dr. Channing is Avrong as to slave-owners. 



I have long, and habitually entertained for Dr. Channing an 
almost reverential esteem. I have considered him an admira- 
ble, enviable Christian. Now that he has associated himself 
in the publication of his book, with an Irishman, an English- 
man and a German, to do, what I take to be, a great social 
and political wrong to Americans, I shall think myself per- 
fectly justifiable, nay dutiful, in using for a few sentences, his 
own didactic manner. 

No part of his book has shocked me more, than the repeat- 
ed declaration, that the negro is niade in God's image. Is it 
6 



42 

any where said in the New Testament, that man is made in 
God's image. It is repeatedly said there, that our Saviour 
was made in God's image ? Will it be permitted to say, that 
man is made in God's image, because he has some similitude 
to our Saviour, in some meanings of the world image ? It is 
true that the writer of the book of Genesis (it may have been 
Moses) assumes to recite what God said, " Let us make man 
in our own image, after our likeness." To whom did God 
say this .'' This is not an authority for the fact so often stated 
by Dr. Channing. The first three chapters of Genesis 
is an account of the origin of creation, and an account 
also of good and evil. These two subjects have naturally 
exercised the inventive powers of the mind, all over the 
world. Almost every nation had its own theory. Though 
I believe that IMoses was divinely commissioned, in the 
sense in which George Washington was, to do a great good, 
to a particular people, and to lay the foundation of great 
events deeply interesting to all people, yet 1 am ignorant that 
Moses was inspired ; or that he is entitled to credit or dis- 
credit, otherwise than in common with all historians. His 
work must be submitted to the criticism of reason. I think 
it a great misfortune to the Christian community and one great 
obstacle to the propagation of Christianity, that the account 
given by Moses, has been literally understood and associated 
with divine revelation. Milton's Paradise Lost, unequalled 
as it may be as a work of imagination, and in grandeur of ex- 
pression, has done more injury than good, to the world. The 
three first chapters of Genesis are not essentially connected 
with Christianity. If the Old Testament had contained noth- 
ing more than the prophecies and the genealogy of our Sav- 
iour, the Chiistian system, so far as it needed any, would 
have had all the foundation that it does need. I consider 
these two elements (perfectly within the comprehension of 
reason) to be irresistible proofs of God's interposition to re- 
store (in one sense) the " depraved " race of man to his di- 
vine favor. There liavc been many operations of the human 
mind in science and discoveries, which are truly astonishing; 
but all of them may be accounted for by natural causes. No 
such causes will account for the projjheiic annunciation of our 



43 

Saviour's appearance on earth. For these reasons especially, 
and for many others, the Old Testament is justly held to be a 
sacred book. But no man is held to believe literally, and 
against his reason, all and every thing therein contained. I 
find it not only unnecessary, but exceedingly difficult to take 
literally as true, the account of the origin of good and evil, as 
contained in the three first chapters, and of the creation of 
man in the likeness of God. If this is to be understood as 
allegorical, (as I think it must be) I can point out two allego- 
ries, made further East, which appear to me to be in nowise 
inferior and on precisely the same subject. 

If I am at liberty to deal with the first three chapters of 
Genesis according to reason, then, there is nothing therein 
which reason so peremptorily rejects, as that man is made in 
God's image. May the strongest and the wisest of mortals, 
made up, as he must be, in his physical being, of a combina- 
tion of earths, ever changing and perishable ; mourning over 
the past, terrified at his own apprehensions of the coming, fit- 
ful, wayward, and inconsistent ; the short-lived tenant of one 
of the most inferior of milHons of planets, assume to be made 
in the likeness of Him, by whose order the vast creation 
arose ? " Angels smiled and wondered," when the mighties 
of all his race told how his own little ball keeps its pathway in 
the realms, which no stretch of his imagination could encir- 
cle. May the vain shadow of a shade take on itself to say, 
that it is like the Almightt and Eternal ! when it cannot 
comprehend the action of its own system, nor how the seed 
is quickened in the ground, nor how the blossoms foretell the 
coming fruit, nor how that fruit prolongs the little tenure of its 
life ? "•' What .'"' Jl negro made in the image of God ! What 
is God's image ? " Canst thou by searching find out God ?" 
" Lo ! he goeth by me and I see him not ; he passeth on also, 
but I perceive him not. Knowest thou the ordinances of 
Heaven ? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the Earth .'"'* 

*Mis. Sarah Austin, (eminently distinguished for her German Scholarship) 
has given this version of Ga3the's thought of the Deity : 
Who can name him ? 
Who can feel and dare affirm, 
I believe in him not ? 
The AU-encompassing, 



44 

Within the little circle of man's knowledge is the fact, that 
God has made, according to one naturalist ^i;e species of the 
animal, man, and, according to another, fifteen. He has as- 
signed to them their respective portions of the earth, in which 
condition is best. He assigned to the negro a vertical sun, a 
color, form, hair, and physical qualities which adapt him to 
that location. I shall not follow Dr. Channing in the disqui- 
sition of the intellectual, moral and religious qualities of this 
species of man. All this would be the vainest of speculations, 
since, neither God, nor experience, nor induction have hith- 
erto instructed us, what to affirm, nor what to deny. 

This also, is a known fact, that a portion of this colored 
race, have been, it must be presumed by God's will, transfer- 
red from their burning sands, to our country, where they are 
considered, by all but abolitionists, what God made them to 
be, an inferior race to all other men. So placed, they are 
never the subjects of public charity ; rarely the subjects of 
public prosecution within slave-holding states. They are pro- 
vided for in every stage of life. When old age and infirmi- 
ties come on, they cannot be shaken off and abandoned. Hu- 
manity and interest, with most persons, combine to keep them 
in health and vigor, for the same reason (if I do not shock 
abolitionists in saying so) that a New-England farmer takes 
care of his horse, or his ox. If abolitionists would permit 
it, they might be schooled, and might be instructed in reli- 
gious and moral duties. How far they are capable of this, is 
a speculation into which I shall not enter. It is probable, 
that their condition might be greatly meliorated, if it were 
the pleasure of abolitionists to allow this so to be, by letting 
them and their masters alone. It is even probable that manu- 
mission might take place, to a greater or less extent, if aboli- 
tionists had not forced, both on master and slave, the necessity 

The All-sustuining, 

Encompasses, sustains lie not, 

Thee, me himself ? 
Compare this tlioiight with Dr. Channing's notion that the negro is made in 
God's image ! No mind attempts to personify (iod, witliont being driven back 
to infancy ; vvlicn only the mind is weak enough to conceive of (iod, in some 
figure borrowed from earthly objects. 



45 

of regarding each other not as friends, but enemies ; the one, 
thief, robber, tyrant ; the other, a disgraced, chained, cruelly 
treated captive, in despite of humanity, and God's will, and 
entitled to " terrible vengeance." 

In this state of things immediate emancipation is demanded 
m God's name. As experience is the best teacher, I have 
glanced over my poor stock of historical facts to find what are 
likely to be the consequences to slaves. I discern no case 
where a people were held in bondage, who were utterly im- 
miscible in the social and political condition of their masters. 
A peasantry is talked of. There long was, in Europe, and 
still is, in the Eastern parts of it, a class called adscripti 
glebae, persons tied to the soil, and sold with it. Where free- 
dom was acquired, all were capable of mingling in society. 
But these things occurred where the castes of society where 
nearly as well fixed, and adhered to, as they are among the 
Hindoos. Here we have but two castes, freemen, and slaves. 
The admission of the latter class to all the rights which belong 
to the former, without limitation, or distinction, would be alike 
fatal to the security, welfare and happiness of both classes. 
Disputes, civil war, and extermination, w^ould be inevitable. 
A qualified liberation, according to Dr. Channing's plan, 
(most exceedingly "crude" if I may use one of his own 
words) would certainly lead to the same consequences. It 
becomes, in the first instance, a naked question of interest or 
money, for which Dr. Channing seems to have great con- 
tempt. What now becomes of the white man's concern in 
the welfare of the blacks .'' What is it now to the whites, who is 
poor, sorry, lame, indolent, sulky, sick, aged, dying or dead, 
among the blacks ? Or w^hat wrongs, tyrannies or crimes they 
perpetrate as to each other .'' 

It is highly probable that the freed slave would have the 
satisfactory " vengeance " of making a slave of his former 
master. If I were as able, eloquent and learned as Dr. 
Channing, I could prove, to all unprejudiced minds, from the 
nature of man, (which I take to be a decisive expression of 
God's will) that a black race and a white race, cannot exist 
on one and the same soil, is nearly equal numbers, unless one 
of the two is completely and absolutely subjected to the other. 



46 

Does Dr. Channing or any other man, know what qualities, 
vicious or virtuous, thrifty or impoverishing, the colored race 
would exhibit, if left to themselves ? What is the condition 
of Hayti at the present moment ? I take it to be a very severe 
military despotism, by mulattoes over blacks, and all its in- 
habitants continually growing poorer and more ignorant, and 
hastening rapidly to the natural state of their parent regions. 
What so swells the bills of mortality in New-York, Philadel- 
phia, and Baltimore ? Is it not from the habits of freed blacks .'' 
— But — how inconsistent it is with the spirit of " universal 
benevolence " to consider such things ! Adhere to and push 
through, abstract principles, and leave the consequence to 
God ! 

Blessed of the Almighty ! be that spirit which strives to 
abolish the African slave trade, that most complicated, delib- 
erate and horrible wickedness, fit only for " profoundest Hell." 
The motives of abolitionists are strongly contrasted with this 
spirit. But if slaves could know what these enthusiasts say 
and print, they could lack nothing but the power to execute 
a will, which would throw the horrors of that traffic into shade. 
Deplorable delusion ! England will mourn in sackcloth and 
ashes, and within half a century, that this spirit was yielded 
to, in her councils. Taking this measure in connexion with 
the inevitable state of India, it will be an accelerating step in 
declension, which can never be retraced. " Take care of 
irrevocable deeds,'' is a precious maxim, no less to nations 
than to men. 



The theories set forth in Dr. Channing's book are icrong 
as to the JVation. If wrong as to States in which slaves are, 
and those in which they are not ; and if wrong as to masters 
and slaves, it may not necessarily follow, that they are wrong 
as to the Nation. It is easy to prove that they arc so. 

Distinct and independent as the States and liie citizens 
thereof, certainly arc, as to every thing animate and inanimate 
within their respective territorial limits, every citizen, in every 
State, is solemnly bound to all other citizens, in every State, 



47 

to support and maintain a deliberately formed contract to unite 
them all into one nation. Any citizen who does any act tend- 
ing to impair, and to dissolve this national contract, does 
something worse than to commit a great immorality ; he ha- 
zards the charge of doing that wrong, which is a breach of 
contract, and which, if done in certain modes, would be a 
severely punishable offence. 

Dr. Channing is not unmindful (pages 156, 157) that the 
spirit of abolitionism, followed out as he recommends, may 
dissolve the union ; yet he is pleased to speak emphatically 
of its value. " No one prizes the union more than myself." 
" INIost men value the union as a means, to me it is an end." 
It does not follow, because I cannot comprehend this distinc- 
tion, that none exists. I should think the union, of little 
value, if it were either "means" or "end," only. "To 
me " the union is means to many and most important ends, as 
domestic tranquility, commerce, peace, war, revenue, nation- 
al independence. To enable States to have means to these 
ends, the national constitution guarantees to them, a republi- 
can forin of Government. To enable States and citizens to 
have the means of ordering every thing as they please, pre- 
cisely as they could, and did, before the union was formed, 
(those things only excepted which were, by the constitution, 
delegated to the National Government,) the constitution pro- 
vides, that every thing not delegated, is reserved to the States 
or to the people. To secure to each State, protection against 
invasion, and " domestic violence," the national government, 
on a prescribed form of application therefor, is bound to em- 
body militia, and send them to the relief of the distressed 
State. 

This provision has always been understood as intended to 
protect States against that servile violence, which the meas- 
ures of abolitionists are exactly adapted to produce. Dr. 
Channing may repel as indignantly as he pleases (and he may 
do so, no doubt, with conscientious truth) the imputation of 
intending to stir up revolt, violation, conflagration, and mas- 
sacre ; but it is not for him, nor any other abolitionist, to 
choose the consequences of his acts. May he put the flam- 
beau of his " universal benevolence " to one end of a com- 



48 

bustible pile, on which a violent wind is blowing, and com- 
mand the flame to stop where he pleases ? 

In my view, Dr. Channing's theories are a clear, obvious 
violation of his duty as a national citizen. Surely he is not 
of this opinion, because he is incapable of any intentional 
wrong. If his book has made it necessary for any slave- 
owner to take precautions against violence ; if it has made 
any citizen think his property less valuable ; if it has made 
any mother hug her infant closer to her breast, in terror ; if 
it has brought into any wife's or virgin's mind, thoughts of 
horror ; if it has brought fear and trembling to any heart ; 
was not Dr. Channing forbidden by the solemn duties of a 
national citizen, forbidden as a Christian, to do this ? What 
right. Heaven-born or earthly, has he, or any other abolition- 
ist, to publish, that beings whether made in " God's image " 
or not, are entitled to " terrible vengeance " against his na- 
tional fellow-citizens ? 

Highly as Dr. Channing prizes the union, it can, in his 
opinion, be purchased, at too dear a rate. It will be purchas- 
ed and held at too dear a rate, if he cannot have " an imme- 
diate disclaimer of the right of property in human beings." 
He says, page 157, " Still, if the union can be preserved 
only by the imposition of chains, on speech and on the press, 
by prohibition of discussion, on a subject involving the most 
sacred rights, and dearest interests of humanity, then union 
will be bought at too dear a rate ; then it would be changed 
from a virtuous bond, into a league of crime and shame." 

Is this bond any thing else but what it was in 17S7, when 
prepared by as wise, patriotic, and virtuous an assembly as 
was ever known among men ? Is it any thing else than what it 
was, in that, and the two following years, when it was joyfully, 
triumphantly, solemnly adopted by a whole people, as the sure 
and only means of escape from confusion, civil war, anarchy, 
despotism ? Yes ! It is no longer that bond. The Reverend 
Dr. Channing, of jMassachusets, has just discovered that there 
arc, in the Southern States, some two or three millions of 
black people, made in " (iod's image with innnortal souls, 
and (iod-liko powers," who ought, according to "the law 
written on tlie heart, and republished in God's word," " forth- 



49 

with to be made his fellow-citizens !" If he cannot have the 
immediate gratification of hailing them as such, this bond forth- 
with becomes " a league of crime and shame !" 

As there is not the remotest probability that the gratifica- 
tion which Dr. Channing seeks is attainable, and as there is 
as little probability that the good sense of the North will tol- 
erate abolitionists to the extent of irritating and forcing the 
South to break from the union to protect themselves from the 
horrors which abolitionism tends to produce, we must contin- 
ue to live under this league of crime and shame. If the 
American people have wisdom and virtue enough to choose 
men who will faithfidly administer the laws which they have 
made themselves, in the true spirit of that religion which Dr. 
Channing professes, we shall g6 on well, by whatever name 
he may call that bond. Yet this may not be so. It may be 
ordered that the people of the non -slave-holding States shall 
permit their " sacred rights and dearest interests " to be sa- 
crificed to the spirit of abolitionism. It may be that some 
men, wives, daughters, and children, will continue to attend 
abolition meetings, and to spend their time on eloquent and 
exciting publications. It may be in this, as in a recent case, 
that abolition or not, is to become the test for political em- 
ployment, church-membership, and the right to the benefits of 
neighborhood ; and even the right to sunbeams and air. It 
may be that the peace, union and hopes of this rising empire, 
are to fall before a wild solicitude for Southern blacks. What 
limits does enthusiasm in the cause of " humanity," prescribe 
to itself, but despotism ! 

If, after all, Dr. Channing is entirely right in his principles 
of duty, and I, consequently, wrong, there is one thing in 
which not he nor any other abolitionist, can be right. If 
every slave-holder in the South had united to engage aboli- 
tionists to give to slave owners the fullest justification for ceas- 
ing to attempt emancipation, and for holding slaves in the 
strictest bondage, aboHtionists could, in no way, have per- 
formed the desired service so thoroughly and triumphantly, as 
they have done. When enthusiasm stops to take counsel, it 
loses its distinctive character, and incurs the risk of falling 
into common sense. 
- 7 



50 

Have I been attempting to justify abstract slavery, as a re- 
ligious, moral, social, or political right ? No more than Dr. 
Channing intended to do the same thing by his book. I would 
not enslave a breathing creature of any shape, nor made in any 
image, nor even cause a " starling " to say " I can't get out." 
I am only examining the Rev. Dr. Channing 's profound and 
original notions on " Great truths, inalienable rights, and ever- 
lasting duties," as applied to a state of society, civilized, 
christian, and long established, and wholly unprecedented in 
the history of mankind. This examination has conducted me 
to the conclusion that this author's notions are wrong as to 
the inevitable order of society ; as to Southern States, as to 
Northern States, as to Masters, as to Slaves, as to the Ameri- 
can Nation. Wrong, politically, socially, morally, religious- 
ly ; and right in nothing but " metaphysical abstractions, and 
impracticable theories." 

Have I a right to give my reasons for my perception of 
" duty ?" As much as Dr. Channing has to arrogate to him- 
self a piety and wisdom transcendantly superior to like attri- 
butes in all other men. His notions of duty and those of all 
other unprejudiced sensible men, are as opposite to each other 
as are the extensor and flexor muscles of the human body. 

I am gratefully mindful of what it cost, to secure to the 
citizens of Massachusetts the right to address the public from 
good motives and for justifiable ends, on all subjects of com- 
mon and general interest. This right I will surrender to no 
man, however respected and esteemed, venerated or reverend. 
I will exercise this right whenever I believe that any efibrt of 
mine, however poor itself, may help to avert evil from the 
community in which I live, or the national Union to which I 
owe allegiance. 

Dr. Channing craves the Divine blessing on his work. 
Far be it from me to assume to do this, on mine. I have 
another depressing incrpiality as to " my work." I have not 
a well-earned and illustrious fame to emblazon my name in a 
title page. If my name, subscribed at the close, would add 
the weight of a fcaiher, I would suppress it for that very rea- 
son. Facts, opinions, and conclusions are to be estimated, 
at what they are worth, on their own account, not on account 



51 

of an author's fame. All who feel interested, (and who can 
feel that he is not ?) must judge for themselves, on these facts 
and inferences, in the sobriety of reason, and not according to 
the delusions of amiable, misapplied philanthropy. 

What ought a Massachusetts man to do about slavery ? 
What ought slave-owners to do ? What will finally come of 
slavery ? To the first question I should answer, JYothing, 
To the second. Whatever they think best. To the third. That 
Omniscient Mind by tvhich slavery was originally permitted <f 
and hitherto continued.^ knows, and none other, 

" Shall mortal mati be more just than God ?" 
" Shall a 7nan be more pure than his Maker ?" 

Essex County, Mass. March, 1836. 



Pursuing the Author's course I have a few remarks to add 
on his " Notes," with which he concludes his volume. He 
says ; I wish to add a few statements to show how little reli- 
ance can be place on what seem, to a superficial observer, 
mitigations or advantages of slavery, and how much safer it is 
to argue from the experience of all times, and from the princi- 
ples of human nature, than /rom insulated facts." 

What would one naturally expect from this preface ? The 
very last thing to be expected must be "insulated facts." 
Yet, the author goes on to state such facts. From these, he 
makes out, that he has reasoned from " the experience of all 
times, and from the principles of human nature," because he 
puts on these facts, just such construction as suits his purpose. 
The inferences seem to have been made first, and then facts 
sought for to maintain them. 

I will try, in like manner, to show what " the experience of 
all times, and the priciples of human nature," are, by " in- 
sulated facts." Dr. Channing is not the only man in the 
North who has seen a slave country. Among the insulated 
facts of which I have heard are the following. 

I. A northern man asked a slave, whether he did not de- 
sire his liberty. He answered, " No. I am as well as I 
can be. I have good Massa. He take care of me. He 



52 

must take care of me when I am old. I tell the colored peo- 
ple, the talk 'bout liberty is nonsense. If they get liberty 
and go away, they die miserable." 

2. A South Carolinian who was here last summer said : — r 
"I own a sea-island plantation three miles from the main 
land. There are 200 slaves on it ; and one white family. I 
sometimes go there and pass a month. If I were suddenly 
taken sick, and needed a physician, there are dozens of slaves 
on my plantation, who would swim the strait in the night time 
to procure me a physician, if there were no other way of get- 
ting one." 

3. A New England clergyman said, — " I preached on a 
plantation. The slaves assembled, and gave me a call. I 
answered that I was absent from home on account of health, 
and was already settled." If no similar thing should ever oc- 
cur again, why not ? Let abolitionists answer. 

4. I heard a North Carolinian say : " ]My body servant, 
who was born about the same time I was, in the same house, 
and never separated from me, was engaged one day in shav- 
ing me. He had been treated with the utmost kindness, and 
had ever shown the most devoted attachment. While per- 
forming this service he said, — " Massa, what you take for 
me.''" " Take for you ?" said I, with astonishment. "Yes," 
said he, " I want my liberty." " Take it," said I, " and 
leave me." He did so, went to Baltimore, and in three 
years was dead, from vice and misery." 

5. 1 have heard a northern man say, that he had spent 
three months in the South ; that he never heard the sound of 
a lash ; that the black population appeared to be far hapjner 
than the white race. That there are mistresses who attend 
with maternal tenderness to the wants of their slaves, sick or 
well ; mistresses who have made it a duty to inform them- 
selves of the diseases to which blacks are subject, and who 
are skilful in the use of remedies ; and who daily visited the 
ab:)dcs of blacks throughout their plantations. 

6. Ten years ago an eminent citizen of North Carolina 
was in Boston. He said : " I live in a town 12 miles from 
my plantation. My overseer came to me and said that the 
negroes were refractory, and that I must go up and whip 



53 

them. I told him I had never whipped any body in my life, 
but I would go up and make them a speech. The overseer 
said no speech would restore them to order. I answered I 
should take no whip in my hand, and told him to go back and 
have them all assembled the next morning. I went up, and 
said to them, that I was surprised at what I heard of them ; 
that every new year's day I had visited them and distributed 
presents among them all ; gone almost weekly into all their 
dwelling-places, and spared neither money nor care to make 
them comfortable. I see you want another master. Next 
Saturday at nine, I shall come with an auctioneer, and you 
shall have no trouble from me, nor I from you, in future. 
One of them said, stop a little Massa. He stepped aside with 
four or five, and, after a few moments consultation, they re- 
turned and said, try us a little longer Massa, and see how we 
do. I never heard a word more of complaint, and there they 
are to this day." 

7. I heard a gentleman say, that he was sitting with the 
mistress of a tavern on the piazza. An aged colored woman, 
totally blind, was feeling her way along an entry ; and an aged 
decrepid man of color was creeping from an out-building to 
the tavern house, at the same time. The gentleman said to 
the mistress, " Do these aged persons do any work ? She 
answered — Not the least thing. Said he — Why don't you 
get rid of them ? She replied — They have been good ser- 
vants in their time. Our laws oblige us to take care of them. 
If they did not, the home of these persons is kere^ while they 
live." 

8. Robert H. Goldsborough, Senator of the United States 
from Maryland, in his speech delivered 8th of this month, 
says : " In no instance, (and I have known many,) where an 
intelligent man from the North has come to the South, without 
any other impressions of negro slavery than tliose formed in 
his own fancy at a distance, have I ever known him to be 
otherwise than completely astonished and gratified at the real 
condition of things. Instead of meeting wiih his supposed 
squalid, trembling, ill-treated set of beings, he finds a cheerful 
well-conditioned laboring people, with a body of lively and 
kindly treated domestic servants ; in fact, instead of abject 



54 

and tyrannically abused slaves, he finds a happy well trained 
peasantry, who divide with their masters a good portion of 
their labor, and who unlike other peasantry, are not left to 
chances and accident for their support, but through all acci- 
dent and chance, are sustained and protected by the means, 
the care, and the favor of their masters." 

In the same speech Mr. G. says : " How mistaken is this 
zeal ! How ill-adapted to its end ! If they who are leading 
on to such things, could only witness the return of these 
Southern gentlemen with their families to their homes, and see 
their meeting with their slaves as they call them, and as they 
really are, they would not only be astonished, after all they 
had heard or thought, but I believe, sincerely, they would de- 
sist. Instead of the ' crouching creatures in the form of 
man' coming with doubting fear into the presence of a tyrant, 
as the scene is ever falsely represented, they would see the 
gladdened countenances of a well-taken care of people hasten- 
ing with joy to greet their friends return ; and the rustic la- 
borers from the fields, when they come in from their employ- 
ments, are no less anxious to bid the hearty welcome. Then 
ensue the inquiries for health and cares, and all is satisfaction 
and joy around. Sir, I present no fancied picture. I give 
the scenes that are prevalent and usual." 

I have no commentary to make on the " insulated facts" 
stated by this Senator, but this : which of the two parties, 
(Dr. Channing and Mr. Goldsborough) is most to be credited 
on the " arguing from the experience of all times, and from 
the principles of human nature .''" Dr. Channing is removed 
some hundreds of miles from slavery, and does not appear 
from his book, to have seen slavery but once, where, when 
or how long, is not stated. Was he looking after insulated 
facts to sustain existing prejudices ? He is a singularly se- 
cluded clergyman, devoured (as his book shows) by the ab- 
stract notions of abolitionism ; and has forgotten the realities 
of this world, in his paternal solicitude to provide for all 
colors in the next. Mr. Goldsborough speaks on the respon- 
sibility of a Senator ; from the knowledge of long continued 
experience ; in the presence of hundreds who know whether 
he is well founded in what he says ; and surrounded by those 



55 

who could and would display his errors, if any there were. 
Which of these gentlemen is to be credited ? There are 
cases of cruelty among slaves I doubt not, from "principles 
of human nature," because I see cases of arrogance, insolence 
and provocation ; and cases of passion, oppression and tyran- 
ny, wherever there are communities. Man is exceedingly 
prone to tyrannise over his fellow-man wherever he can in- 
dulge his will. If I do not entirely misunderstand Dr. Chan- 
ning's book, we should all be kept in prime order, in the 
North as well as the South, if his will were law, and if he had 
executive power to enforce it. In comparing the credibility 
of these two persons, in speaking of general usages, and of 
the condition, character, and conduct, pleasures and pains and 
purposes for which human life was given to blacks as well as 
whites, I cannot refuse my assent to what this Senator asserts. 
I leave to others, to judge of the bearing and worth of Dr. 
Channing's statements. But whether the one or the other is 
to be credited or both, they speak on subjects with which 
New England men are (as I trust I have proved) forbidden to 
interfere. 



I am most heartily tired of this labor, and long to be other- 
wise employed ; but there are some things in notes 2 and 3 
which ought not to pass unnoticed. In note 2 the author 
says, " The strong and next to universal impression in regard 
" to the tendency of this party (abolitionist) to inflame com- 
" mon minds, confirmed as it is, by what I have seen of their 
" newspapers, must be essentially true. The orator who was 
" chiefly employed in addressing their meetings and forming 
" societies, was distinguished by his vehemence and passion- 
" ate invectives. On one occasion, there is strong proof of 
" his having given an opinion in favor of (iCT') cruel ven- 
" geance on the part of the slaves. This seems to contradict 
" what I have said of the steady inculcation of forbearance 
" and non-resistance of abolitionists. But this case, if cor- 
" rectly reported, was an exception ; an ebuUition of uncon- 
" trollable passion in an individual for which the rest were not 
" responsible." 



56 

What a striking illustration is this of the proverb " The eye 
cannot see itself." Dr. Channing severely condemns the act 
of an orator, under the influence of uncontrollable passion, for 
having expressed an opinion in favor of " cruel vengeance on 
the pait of the slaves." When, where, or by whom, or on 
what "common minds," this outrage was committed in a 
perishable and perhaps forgotten speech, from an unworthy 
man, the author has not stated. It could not have been 
spoken to any New-England audience, (unless they had lost 
their senses,) without being followed by a condemnation of 
the orator, and of the speech, as fervently as Dr. Channing 
condemns them. But outrageous as this was, still it is moral, 
religious, dutiful, for a man no less celebrated than Dr. Wil- 
liam E. Channing, in the calmness of the closet, to prepare a 
book, destined for stereotype printing ; to be read universally, 
and to be familiar not to " common minds " only, but to all 
minds ; and to make, not one impression, but thousands of 
impressions ; not on this generation only, but all future gen- 
erations craving to know what so great a mind as Dr. Chau- 

ning's could produce, — and that book contains— What .^ 

It does contain, at the foot of page 59 and on page 60, after 
a most inflammatory description of the wrongs of the slave, 
and far exceedingly any thing that ever came from any aboli- 
tion " orator," these words ; — " JVo felloio creature can be so 
injured ivilhout taking terrible vengeance." 

As Dr. Channing must desire to have every thing done 
which he thinks just ; as he thinks it would be just for slaves 
to take " terrible vengeance," he must desire that slaves 
would take such vengeance. When, therefore. Dr. Chan- 
ning hears of nocturnal insurrection, of conflagration, viola- 
tion, and indiscriminate massacre, these tidings will give him 
no pain ; for a righteous man must acquiesce in deeds of 
justice. The icrong done by some unknown " orator," was 
to utter such a sentiment, in a passionate, transitory speech. 
The right done by Dr. Channing is, to utter the same senti- 
ment, in the most durable, and universal form, and with the 
sanction of his own great name. 

I earnestly hope for the honor of ]3r. Clianning's fame, 
from reverence oi his profession, foi- the honor of Massachu- 



f 



57 

setts, for the cause of humanity, that I have, for once, lost 
the knowledge of my mother tongue ; and I should gladly 
learn that I had. 

In Note III. are these words ; " I beg, however, to say, 
that nothing which I have written can have proceeded from 
unkind feehngs towards the South ; for in no other part of the 
country, have my ivritings found a more gratifying reception ; 
from no other part have I received stronger expressions of 
sympathy. My own feelings, had I consulted them, would 
have led me to stifle every expression which could give pain 
to those from whom I have received nothing but good will.^' 

One of two things is likely to come of this volume. — First ; 
" the South " will continue to believe, that the existence, the 
continuance, or the abandonment of slavery is exclusively a 
concern of their own, both in this world and the next ; and 
agree with Dr. Channing, that it is a matter in w'hich he has 
"no right to interfere." In this case, the South may think 
that the author has made a most ungracious return for the vol- 
untary honors conferred on " my w^ritings ;" and for his " re- 
ceipts of nothing but good will." Or, secondly ; the South, 
" quailing " under Dr. Channing's awful denunciations, may 
forthwith manumit all their slaves ; and rising, in oriental cus- 
tom, from the earth on to their knees, may gratefully kiss the 
paternal hand by which they have been made to know the 
nature and extent of their sins, in a manner not to be misun- 
derstood. [In China, when a Mandarin orders a whipping 
with the bamboo, the sinner is stretched on the earth, back 
upwards, and when the infliction is made, the sinner gets on to 
his knees, and gratefully kissing the Mandarin's hand thanks 
him for his kindness. The gratitude is proportioned to the 
severity of the chastisement.] 

In the last page 196, there is a caution to the South, which, 
come from what source it may, is well worthy of their notice. 
Any attempt of Southern men, to interfere with personal lib- 
erty, beyond their oxen territorial limits, would undoubtedly 
be attended with all the evil consequences which the author 
very properly describes. It would kindle a flame which no 
earthly elements could extinguish. 

I have amused myself with a sort of philosophical problem, 
8 



58 

contained in the question, why did Dr. Channing prepare and 
pubhsh this book ? The only way in wliich 1 can solve this, 
is by applying the good old rule of three. When one knows 
certain facts concerning any man, he may, " on the principles 
of human nature," deduce unknown facts ; or as logicians 
say, he must go, by reasoning, from the known to the required 
unknown. Assume then, that a man is an able, eloquent 
divine ; that his writings have every where found " a gratify- 
ing reception," and have called forth " strong expressions of 
sympathy ;" that his knowledge is derived from what he reads, 
and from his own contemplations ; that those who come within 
the sound of his voice, never come to impart any knowledge 
(because no one can instruct him,) but to listen to words as 
near to inspiration, as any words can be, in this age of the 
world. Would not such a man, from " the principles of 
human nature" necessarily believe, that common consent had 
revived in Jiim, the long departed Pythia of the Delphic cave, 
and ordained him to dictate, ex tripode., to an admiring and 
grateful world .'' Suppose that such a man perceives his coun- 
trymen to be laboring under a " bewildering excitement ;" 
that their minds are " stormed and darkened by strong passions 
and fierce conflicts." Then, would it not be such a man's 
" duty" to go forth, with a "whip" in one hand, and "God's 
word" in the oilier, and take a dictatorial command in this 
frightful moral commotion, and set all the warring world to 
rights .'' How unfortunate it would be, if this benign interpo- 
sition should have no other efiect than to aggravate the sup- 
posed evils, and to make them irremediable ! 

I have discussed Dr. Channing's book freely ; but not a 
thousandth part so freely as he has discussed every body, and 
every thing, which he considers to need the chastisement of 
his transcendent piety and wisdom. Free discussion is the 
only preservative of civil and religious liberty. This country 
is to stand or fall by pitblic opinion. This opinion can be 
kept right, and made to come right when wrong, only by free 
discussion. When this truth is given up, it will be matter of 
indinerence, wheliier Martin \'an Buren wears a tem})oral 
crown, or whether Dr. Channing wears one both spiritual and 
temporal. AFan-worship is a dangerous devotion whetlier 



59 

manifested in spiritual or political concerns. Andrew Jack- 
son would have been more or less than human, if he had not 
sported his wild vagaries on heads laid down in oriental ser- 
vitude. 

All judicious and considerate men (so far as I know and 
believe) deeply regret the publication of Dr. Channing's vol- 
ume. How much to be lamented is it, that this great and 
good man, had not turned his attention to the many and cry- 
ing evils in his own community, instead of attempting to reme- 
dy those which he supposes to exist in communities wherein 
he is forbidden (by his own confession) to interpose. What 
brilliant jewels he might have added to those which he honor- 
ably wears, if he had given his illustrious talents to persuade 
the Legislature of his own State, that they could, in no way, 
promote the public welfare so effectually, as by establishing a 
permanent board of able commissioners to superintend popu- 
lar education ; and a like board to remedy the growing mis- 
chiefs of pauperism. Popular education ; because, order, 
property, republicanism, religion, come therefrom : — pauper- 
ism ; because intemperance, disorder, crime, misery, come 
therefrom. 

I have passed over the consideration of " scripture" be- 
cause it does not appear to me to approve or condemn slavery, 
any more than it approves or condemns Monarchy or Democ- 
racy. Neither the founder of Christianity, nor his disciples, 
interfered, in any way with the political order of society. 
" Render to Csesar, the things that are Cresar's" is a full ex- 
position of the Saviour's will, in this respect. Revelation is 
addressed to each individual's reason and conscience ; requir- 
ing of him to do his duty to God, to himself, and his fellow- 
men, in whatsoever station Providence may have assigned. 
Each one is to be responsible for his own soul, not for the 
souls of others. Least of all does the Gospel require of any 
mortal so to take care of other men's souls for eternity, as to 
bring about temporal evils incalculable and interminable ; and 
necessarily involving crimes which may send unnumbered 
souls to perdition. 

Without any pretension to knowledge which is not common 
to all considerate, educated citizens, I may assume, that from 



60 

the first settlement of this country down to the publication of 
Dr. Channing's book, the great and good men, devoted to the 
ministry, have taken a becoming and useful part in the absorb- 
ing public interests of their times. Often and often have 
they, in the fervent eloquence of the sacred desk, kindled or 
encouraged the noble spirit of patriotism ; and animated the 
holiest zeal in the attainment of things practical and righteous. 
No case is remembered (excluding the troubled scenes of the 
revolution) in which any of these eminent men publicly ap- 
peared on the wrong side. It is a painful apprehension, that 
the world may believe this eminent author to be the exception. 
It is of vital importance in communities, which have politi- 
cally, no religion, that the indispensable, venerated and hon- 
orable office of the clergy, should be sustained with the utmost 
respect, confidence and afiection, within its own proper sphere. 
But if the clergy transcend that sphere ; — if they take on 
themselves to rule the temporalities of the world ; — if they 
assume to annul social institutions by the mere force of spirit- 
ualities ; — if they mount and recklessly ride over all consti- 
tutional and international law, any man may be prophet enough 
to foretell that their holy office will soon come to an end. 

Essex County, Mass. March., 1S36. 



Conclusion. 

Society is man's necessary condition. Its members must 
be governed. Governing may be the exercise of power by a 
few, that all may have and enjoy the benefits of existence. 
It may be, the exercise of power by a few, to control and 
oppress the many, so that these few may wanton in luxury, 
and delight in their supremacy. This latter has been the 
common lot, in most nations, and in all ages. Causes : Force, 
hereditary claims, priestly power, bribery, corruption, fraud, 
perversion of law. So it must ever be, unless a people have 
power, will, and wisdom, to establish, prospcctivchj, rules 
to restrain folly and passion, and alike binding, suj)remc, and 
sacred, as to rulers and the ruled. 



i 



61 

Americans, and they only, have had power, will, and wis- 
dom to establish political rules, admirably adapted to their 
condition ; leaving a wide space untouched for intellectual and 
moral action. Better lights and experience disclose errors 
and wrongs requiring remedies. To that community only, in 
which these appear, belongs the remedial power. Those 
who so exercise that power as to produce far greater evils 
than those they would abolish, tread backwards in the great 
purpose of melioration, and defeat their own ends. 

The progress of a state, or nation requires a continual and, 
sometimes, a new application of political rules. Whether 
this shall be justly and wisely, or dishonestly and perversely 
done, depends on the character of rulers. Whoever tramples 
down the established rules, intended for the public security, 
and the common good, and substitutes his own will therefor, 
is a PUBLIC MALEFACTOR. This will be the judgment which 
a discriminating and indignant posterity will pronounce, on 
the present dominant faction in the United States. It will 
make the acts of this faction the more odious, that they were 
done in the name of " the people " for whose benefit these 
rules were made, by a wise and patriotic ancestry. 



